"No, Dodo," he said hoarsely, "I cannot do it. Think of Chesterford! Think of anything! Don't tempt me. You know I cannot. How dare you ask me?"
Dodo's face grew hard and white. She tried to laugh, but could not manage it.
"Ah," she said, "the old story, isn't it? Potiphar's wife again. I really do not understand what this love of yours is. And now I have debased and humbled myself before you, and there you stand in your immaculate virtue, not caring—"
"Don't, Dodo," He said. "Be merciful to me, spare me. Not caring—you know it is not so. But I cannot do this. My Dodo, my darling."
The strain was too great for him. He knelt down beside her, and kissed her hand passionately.
"I will do anything for you," he whispered, "that is in my power to do; but this is impossible. I never yet did, with deliberate forethought, what seemed to me mean or low, and I can't now. I don't want credit for it, because I was made that way; I don't happen to be a blackguard by nature. Don't tempt me—I am too weak. But you mustn't blame me for it. You know—you must know that I love you. I left England last autumn to cure myself of it, but it didn't answer a bit. I don't ask more than what you have just told me. That is something—isn't it, Dodo? And, if you love me, that is something for you. Don't let us degrade it, let it be a strength to us and not a weakness. You must feel it so."
There was a long silence, and in that silence the great drama of love and life; and good and evil, which has been played every day of every year since the beginning of this world, and which will never cease till all mankind are saints or sexless, filled the stage. Dodo thought, at any rate, that she loved him, and that knowledge made her feel less abased before him. All love—the love for children, for parents, for husband, for wife, for lover, for mistress—has something divine about it, or else it is not love. The love Jack felt for her was divine enough not to seek its own, to sacrifice itself on the altar of duty and loyalty and the pure cold gods, and in its tumultuous happiness it could think of others. And Dodo's love was touched, though ever so faintly, with the same divine spark, a something so human that it touched heaven.
Now it had so happened that, exactly three minutes before this, Maud had found that she had left a particularly precious skein of wool in another room. About ten seconds' reflection made her remember she had left it in the smoking-room, where she had sat with Dodo after lunch, who had smoked cigarettes, and lectured her on her appearance. The smoking-room had two doors, about eight yards apart, forming a little passage lighted with a skylight. The first of those doors was of wood, the second, which led into the smoking-room, of baize. The first door was opened in the ordinary manner, the second with a silent push. Maud had made this silent push at the moment when Jack was kneeling by Dodo's side, kissing her hand. Maud was not versed in the wickedness of this present world, but she realised that this was a peculiar thing for Jack to do, and she let the door swing quietly back, and ran downstairs, intending to ask her husband's advice. Chesterford's study opened into the drawing-room. During the time that Maud had been upstairs he had gone in to fetch Dodo, and seeing she was not there he went back, but did not close the door behind him. A moment afterwards Maud rushed into the drawing-room from the hall, and carefully shutting the door behind her, lest anyone should hear, exclaimed:—
"Algy, I've seen something awful! I went into the smoking-room to fetch my wool, and I saw Jack kissing Dodo's hand. What am I to do?"
Algernon was suitably horrified. He remarked, with much reason, that it was no use telling Dodo and Jack, because they knew already.
At this moment the door of Lord Chesterford's study was closed quietly. He did not wish to hear any more just yet. But they neither of them noticed it.
He had overheard something which was not meant for his ears, related by a person who had overseen what she was not meant to see; he hated learning anything that was not his own affair, but he had learned it, and it turned out to be unpleasantly closely connected with him.
His first impulse was to think that Jack had behaved in a treacherous and blackguardly manner, and this conclusion surprised him so much that he set to ponder over it. The more he thought of it, the more unlikely it appeared to him. Jack making love to his wife under cover of his own roof was too preposterous an idea to be entertained. He held a very high opinion of Jack, and it did not at all seem to fit in with this. Was there any other possibility? It came upon him with a sense of sickening probability that there was. He remembered the long loveless months; he remembered Dodo's indifference to him, then her neglect, then her dislike. Had Jack been hideously tempted and not been able to resist? Chesterford almost felt a friendly feeling for not being able to resist Dodo. What did all this imply? How long had it been going on? How did it begin? Where would it stop? He felt he had a right to ask these questions, and he meant to ask them of the proper person. But not yet. He would wait; he would see what happened. He was afraid of judging both too harshly. Maud's account might have been incorrect; anyhow it was not meant for him. His thoughts wandered on dismally and vaguely. But the outcome was, that he said to himself, "Poor Dodo, God forgive her."
He had been so long used to the altered state of things that this blow seemed to him only a natural sequence. But he had been used to feed his starved heart with promises that Dodo would care for him again; that those months when they were first married were only the bud of a flower that would some day blossom. It was this feeble hope that what he had heard destroyed. If things had gone as far as that it was hopeless.
"Yes," he repeated, "it is all gone."
If anything could have killed his love for Dodo he felt that it would have been this. But, as he sat there, he said to himself, "She shall never know that I know of it." That was his final determination. Dodo had wronged him cruelly; his only revenge was to continue as if she had been a faithful wife, for she would not let him love her.
Dodo should never know, she should not even suspect. He would go on behaving to her as before, as far as lay in his power. He would do his utmost to make her contented, to make her less sorry—yes, less sorry—she married him.
Meanwhile Dodo and Jack were sitting before the fire in the smoking-room. He still retained Dodo's hand, and it lay; unresistingly in his. Dodo was the first to speak.
"We must make the best of it, Jack," she said; "and you must help me. I cannot trust myself any longer. I used to be so sure of myself, so convinced that I could be happy. I blame myself for it, not him; but then, you see, I can't get rid of myself, and I can of him. Hence this plan. I have been a fool and a beast. And he, you know, he is the best of men. Poor, dear old boy. It isn't his fault, but it isn't mine. I should like to know who profits by this absurd arrangement. Why can't I love him? Why can't I even like him? Why can't I help hating him? Yes, Jack, it has come to that. God knows there is no one more sorry than I am about it. But this is only a mood. I daresay in half an hour's time I shall only feel angry with him, and not sorry at all. I wonder if this match was made in heaven. Oh, I am miserable."
Jack was really to be pitied more than Dodo. He knelt by her with her hand in his, feeling that he would have given his life without question to make her happy, but knowing that he had better give his life than do so. The struggle itself was over. He felt like a chain being pulled in opposite directions. He did not wrestle any longer; the two forces, he thought, were simply fighting it out over his rigid body. He wondered vaguely whether something would break, and, if so, what? But he did not dream for a moment of ever reconsidering his answer to Dodo. The question did not even present itself. So he knelt by her, still holding her hand, and waiting for her to speak again.
"You mustn't desert me, Jack," Dodo went on. "It is easier for Chesterford, as well as for me, that you should be with us often, and I believe it is easier for you too. If I never saw you at all, I believe the crash would come. I should leave Chesterford, not to come to you, for that can't be, but simply to get away."
"Ah, don't," said Jack, "don't go on talking about it like that. I can't do what you asked, you know that, simply because I love you and am Chesterford's friend. Think of your duty to him. Think, yes, think of our love for each other. Let it be something sacred, Dodo. Don't desecrate it. Help me not to desecrate it. Let it be our safeguard. It is better to have that, isn't it? than to think of going on living, as you must, without it. You said so yourself when you asked me to be with you often. To-night a deep joy has come into my life; let us keep it from disgrace. Ah, Dodo, thank God you love me."
"Yes, Jack, I believe I do," said Dodo. "And you are right; I always knew I should rise to the occasion if it was put forcibly before me. I believe I have an ideal—which I have never had before—something to respect and to keep very clean. Fancy me with an ideal! Mother wouldn't know me again—there never was such a thing in the house."
They were silent for a few minutes.
"But I must go to-morrow," said Jack, "as I settled to, by the disgusting early train. And the dressing-bell has sounded, and the ideal inexorably forbids us to be late for dinner, so I sha'n't see you alone again."
He pressed her hand and she rose..
"Poor little ideal," said Dodo. "I suppose it would endanger its life if you stopped, wouldn't it, Jack? It must live to grow up. Poor little ideal, what a hell of a time it will have when you're gone. Poor dear."
Dinner went off as usual. Dodo seemed to be in her ordinary, spirits. Chesterford discussed parochial help with Mrs. Vivian. He glanced at Dodo occasionally through the little grove of orchids that separated them, but Dodo did not seem to notice. She ate a remarkably good dinner, and talked nonsense to Mr. Spencer who sat next her, and showed him how to construct a sea-sick passenger out of an orange, and smoked two cigarettes after the servants had left the room. Maud alone was ill at ease. She glanced apprehensively at Jack, as if she expected him to begin kissing Dodo's hand again, and, when he asked her casually where she had been since tea, she answered; "In the smoking-room—I mean the drawing-room." Jack merely raised his eyebrows, and remarked that he had been there himself, and did not remember seeing her.
In the drawing-room again Dodo was in the best spirits. She gave Mr. Spencer lessons as to how to whistle on his fingers, and sang a French song in a brilliant and somewhat broad manner. The ladies soon retired, as there was a meet early on the following morning, and, after they had gone, Jack went up to the smoking-room, leaving Chesterford to finish a letter in his study. Shortly afterwards the latter heard the sound of wheels outside, and a footman entered to tell him the carriage was ready.
Chesterford was writing when the man entered, and did not look up.
"I did not order the carriage," he said.
"Her ladyship ordered it for half-past ten," said the man. "She gave the order to me."
Still Lord Chesterford did not look up, and sat silent so long that the man spoke again.
"Shall I tell her ladyship it is round?" he asked. "I came to your lordship, as I understood her ladyship had gone upstairs."
"You did quite right," he said. "There has been a mistake; it will not be wanted. Don't disturb Lady Chesterford, or mention it to her."
"Very good, my lord."
He turned to leave the room, when Lord Chesterford stopped him again. He spoke slowly.
"Did Lady Chesterford give you any other orders?"
"She told me to see that Mr. Broxton's things were packed, my lord, as he would go away to-night. But she told me just before dinner that he wouldn't leave till the morning."
"Thanks," said Lord Chesterford. "That's all, I think. When is Mr. Broxton leaving?"
"By the early train to-morrow, my lord."
"Go up to the smoking-room and ask him to be so good as to come here a minute."
The man left the room, and gave his message. Jack wondered a little, but went down.
Lord Chesterford was standing with his back to the fire. He looked up when Jack entered. He seemed to find some difficulty in speaking.
"Jack, old boy," he said at last, "you and I have been friends a long time, and you will not mind my being frank. Can you honestly say that you are still a friend of mine?"
Jack advanced towards him.
"I thank God that I can," he said simply, and held out his hand.
He spoke without reflecting, for he did not know how much Chesterford knew. Of course, up to this moment, he had not been aware that he knew anything. But Chesterford's tone convinced him. But a moment afterwards he saw that he had made a mistake, and he hastened to correct it.
"I spoke at random," he said, "though I swear that what I said was true. I do not know on what grounds you put the question to me."
Lord Chesterford did not seem to be attending.
"But it was true?" he asked.
Jack felt in a horrible mess. If he attempted to explain, it would necessitate letting Chesterford know the whole business. He chose between the two evils, for he would not betray Dodo.
"Yes, it is true," he said.
Chesterford shook his hand.
"Forgive me for asking you, Jack," he said. "Then that's done with. But there is something more, something which it is hard for me to say." He paused, and Jack noticed that he was crumpling a piece of paper he held in his hand into a tight hard ball. "Then—then Dodo is tired of me?"
Jack felt helpless and sick. He could not trust himself to speak.
"Isn't it so?" asked Chesterford again.
Jack for reply held out both his hands without speaking. There was something horrible in the sight of this strong man standing pale and trembling before him. In a moment Chesterford turned away, and stood warming his hands at the fire.
"I heard something I wasn't meant to hear," he said, "and I know as much as I wish to. It doesn't much matter exactly what has happened. You have told me you are still my friend, and I thank you for it. And Dodo—Dodo is tired of me. I can reconstruct as much as is necessary. You are going off to-morrow, aren't you? I sha'n't see you again. Good-bye, Jack; try to forget I ever mistrusted you. I must ask you to leave me; I've got some things to think over."
But Jack still lingered.
"Try to forgive Dodo," he said; "and forgive me for saying so, but don't be hard on her. It will only make things worse."
"Hard on her?" asked Chesterford. "Poor Dodo, it is hard on her enough without that. She shall never know that I know, if I can help. I am not going to tell you what I know either. If you feel wronged that I even asked you that question, I am sorry for it, but I had grounds, and I am not a jealous man. The whole thing has been an awful mistake. I knew it in July, but I shall not make it worse by telling Dodo."
Jack went out from his presence with a kind of awe. He did not care to know how Chesterford had found out, or how much. All other feelings were swallowed up in a vast pity for this poor man, whom no human aid could ever reach. The great fabric which his love had raised had been shattered hopelessly, and his love sat among its ruins and wept. It was all summed up in that short sentence, "Dodo is tired of me," and Jack knew that it was true. The whole business was hopeless. Dodo had betrayed him, and he knew it. He could no longer find a cold comfort in the thought that some day, if the difficult places could be tided over, she might grow to love him again. That was past. And yet he had only one thought, and that was for Dodo. "She shall never know I know it." Truly there is something divine in those men we thought most human.
Jack went to his room and thought it all over. He was horribly vexed with himself for having exculpated himself, but the point of Chesterford's question was quite clear, and there was only one answer to it. Chesterford obviously did mean to ask whether he had been guilty of the great act of disloyalty which Dodo had proposed, and on the whole he would reconstruct the story in his mind more faithfully than if he had answered anything else, or had refused to answer. But Jack very much doubted whether Chesterford would reconstruct the story at all. The details had evidently no interest for him. All that mattered was expressed in that one sentence, "Dodo is tired of me." Jack would have given his right hand to have been able to answer "No," or to have been able to warn Dodo; but he saw that there was nothing to be done. The smash had come, Chesterford had had a rude awakening. But his love was not dead, though it was stoned and beaten and outcast. With this in mind Jack took a sheet of paper from his writing-case, and wrote on it these words:—
"Do not desecrate it; let it help you to make an effort."
He addressed it to Dodo, and when he went downstairs the next morning he slipped it among the letters that were waiting for her. The footman told him she had gone hunting.
"Is Lord Chesterford up yet?" said Jack.
"Yes, sir; he went hunting too with her ladyship," replied the man.
Dodo was called that morning at six, and she felt in very good spirits. There was something exhilarating in the thought of a good gallop again. There had been frost for a week before, and hunting had been stopped, but Dodo meant to make up all arrears. And, on the whole, her interview with Jack had consoled her, and it had given her quite a new feeling of duty. Dodo always liked new things, at any rate till the varnish had rubbed off, and she quite realised that Jack was making a sacrifice to the same forbidding goddess.
"Well, I will make a sacrifice, too," she thought as she dressed, "and when I die I shall be St. Dodo. I don't think there ever was a saint Dodo before, or is it saintess? Anyhow, I am going to be very good. Jack really is right; it is the only thing to do. I should have felt horribly mean if I had gone off last night, and I daresay I should have had to go abroad, which would have been a nuisance. I wonder if Chesterford's coming. I shall make him, I think, and be very charming indeed. Westley, go and tap at the door of Lord Chesterford's room, and tell him he is coming hunting, and that I've ordered his horse, and send his man to him, and let us have breakfast at once for two instead of one."
Dodo arranged her hat and stood contemplating her own figure at a cheval glass. It really did make a charming picture, and Dodo gave two little steps on one side, holding her skirt up in her left hand.
"Just look at that,
Just look at this,
I really think I'm not amiss,"
she hummed to herself. "Hurrah for a gallop."
She ran downstairs and made tea, and began breakfast. A moment afterwards she heard steps in the hall, and Chesterford entered. Dodo was not conscious of the least embarrassment, and determined to do her duty.
"Morning, old boy," she said, "you look as sleepy as a d. p. or dead pig. Look at my hat. It's a new hat, Chesterford, and is the joy of my heart. Isn't it sweet? Have some tea, and give me another kidney —two, I think. What happens to the sheep after they take its kidneys out? Do you suppose it dies? I wonder if they put india-rubber kidneys in. Kidneys do come from sheep, don't they? Or is there a kidney tree? Kidneys look like a sort of mushroom, and I suppose the bacon is the leaves, Kidnonia Baconiensis; now you're doing Latin, Chesterford, as you used to at Eton. I daresay you've forgotten what the Latin for kidneys is. I should like to have seen you at Eton, Chesterford. You must have been such a dear, chubby boy with blue eyes. You've got rather good eyes. I think I shall paint mine blue, and we shall have a nice little paragraph in the Sportsman. Extraordinary example of conjugal devotion. The beautiful and fascinating Lady C. (you know I am beautiful and fascinating, that's why you married me), the wife of the charming and manly Lord C. (you know you are charming and manly, or I shouldn't have married you, and where would you have been then? like Methusaleh when the candle went out), who lived not a hundred miles from the ancient city of Harchester,' etc. Now it's your turn to say something, I can't carry on a conversation alone. Besides, I've finished breakfast, and I shall sit by you and feed you. Don't take such large mouthfuls. That was nearly a whole kidney you put in then. You'll die of kidneys, and then people will think you had something wrong with your inside, but I shall put on your tombstone, 'Because he ate them, two at a time.'"
Chesterford laughed. Dodo had not behaved like this for months. What did it all mean? But the events of the night before were too deeply branded on his memory to let him comfort himself very much. But anyhow it was charming to see Dodo like this again. And she shall never know.
"You'll choke if you laugh with five kidneys in your mouth," Dodo went on. "They'll get down into your lungs and bob about, and all your organs will get mixed up together, and you won't be able to play on them. I suppose Americans have American organs in their insides, which accounts for their squeaky voices. Now, have you finished? Oh, you really can't have any marmalade; put it in your pocket and eat it as you go along."
Dodo was surprised at the ease with which she could talk nonsense again. She abused herself for ever having let it drop. It really was much better than yawning and being bored. She had no idea how entertaining she was to herself. And Chesterford had lost his hang-dog look. He put her hat straight for her, and gave her a little kiss just as he used to. After all, things were not so bad.
It was a perfect morning. They left the house about a quarter to seven, and the world was beginning to wake again. There was a slight hoar-frost on the blades of grass that lined the road, and on the sprigs of bare hawthorn. In the east the sky was red with the coming day. Dodo sniffed the cool morning air with a sense of great satisfaction.
"Decidedly somebody washes the world every night," she said, "and those are the soapsuds which are still clinging to the grass. What nice clean soap, all in little white crystals and spikes. And oh, how good it smells! Look at those poor little devils of birds looking for their breakfast. Poor dears, I suppose they'll be dead when the spring comes. There are the hounds. Come on, Chesterford, they're just going to draw the far cover. It is a sensible plan beginning hunting by seven. You get five hours by lunch-time."
None of Dodo's worst enemies accused her of riding badly. She had a perfect seat, and that mysterious communication with her horse that seems nothing short of magical. "If you tell your horse to do a thing the right way," she used to say, "he does it. It is inevitable. The question is, 'Who is master?' as Humpty Dumpty said. But it isn't only master; you must make him enjoy it. You must make him feel friendly as well, or else he'll go over the fence right enough, but buck you off on the other side, as a kind of protest, and quite right too."
Dodo had a most enjoyable day's hunting, and returned home well pleased with herself and everybody else. She found Jack's note waiting for her. She read it thoughtfully, and said to herself, "He is quite right, and that is what I mean to do. My young ideal, I am teaching you how to shoot."
She took up a pen, meaning to write to him, but laid it down again. "No," she said, "I can do without that at present. I will keep that for my bad days. I suppose the bad days will come, and I won't use my remedies before I get the disease."
The days passed on. They went hunting every morning, and Dodo began to form very high hopes of her new child, as she called her ideal. The bad days did not seem to be the least imminent. Chesterford behaved almost like a lover again in the light of Dodo's new smiles. He kept his bad times to himself. They came in the evening usually when the others had gone to bed. He used to sit up late by himself over his study fire, thinking hopelessly, of the day that had gone and the day that was to come. It was a constant struggle not to tell Dodo all he knew. He could scarcely believe that he had heard what Maud had said, or that he ever had had that interview with Jack. He could not reconcile these things with Dodo's altered behaviour, and he gave it up. Dodo was tired of him, and he knew that he loved her more than ever. A more delicately-strung mind might almost have given way under the hourly struggle, but it is the fate of a healthy simple man to be capable of more continued suffering than one more highly developed. The latter breaks down, or he gets numbed with the pain; but Chesterford went on living under the slow ache, and his suffering grew no less. But through it all he looked back with deep gratitude to the chance that had sent Dodo in his way. He did not grow bitter, and realised in the midst of his suffering how happy he had been. He had only one strong wish. "Oh, God," he cried, "give me her back for one moment! Let her be sorry just once for my sake."
But there is a limit set to human misery, and the end had nearly come.
It was about a fortnight after Jack had gone. Maud and Mr. Spencer had gone too, but Mrs. Vivian was with them still. Dodo had more than once thought of telling her what had happened, but she could not manage it. When Mrs. Vivian had spoken of going, Dodo entreated her to stop, for she had a great fear of being left alone with Chesterford.
They had been out hunting, and Dodo had got home first. It was about three in the afternoon, and it had begun to snow. She had had lunch, and was sitting in the morning-room in a drowsy frame of mind. She was wondering whether Chesterford had returned, and whether he would come up and see her, and whether she was not too lazy to exert herself. She heard a carriage come slowly up the drive, and did not feel interested enough to look out of the window. She was sitting with her shoes off warming her feet at the fire, with a novel in her lap, which she was not reading, and a cigarette in her hand. She heard the opening and shutting of doors, and slow steps on the stairs. Then the door opened and Mrs. Vivian came in.
Dodo had seen that look in her face once before, when she was riding in the Park with Jack, and a fearful certainty came upon her.
She got up and turned towards her.
"Is he dead?" she asked.
Mrs. Vivian drew her back into her seat.
"I will tell you all," she said. "He has had a dangerous fall hunting, and it is very serious. The doctors are with him. There is some internal injury, and he is to have an operation. It is the only chance of saving his life, and even then it is a very slender one. He is quite conscious, and asked me to tell you. You will not be able to see him for half an hour. The operation is going on now."
Dodo sat perfectly still. She did not speak a word; she scarcely even thought anything. Everything seemed to be a horrible blank to her.
"Ah God, ah God!" she burst out at last. "Can't I do anything to help? I would give my right hand to help him. It is all too horrible. To think that I—" She walked up and down the room, and then suddenly opened the door and went downstairs. She paced up and down the drawing-room, paused a moment, and went into his study. His papers were lying about in confusion on the table, but on the top was a guide-book to the Riviera. Dodo remembered his buying this at Mentone on their wedding-tour, and conscientiously walking about the town sight-seeing. She sat down in his chair and took it up. She remembered also that he had bought her that day a new volume of poems which had just come out, and had read to her out of it. There was in it a poem called "Paris and Helen." He had read that among others, and had said to her, as they were being rowed back to the yacht again that evening, "That is you and I, Dodo, going home."
On the fly-leaf of the guide-book he had written it out, and, as she sat there now, Dodo read it.
As o'er the swelling tides we slip
That know not wave nor foam,
Behold the helmsman of our ship,
Love leads us safely home.
His ministers around us move
To aid the westering breeze,
He leads us softly home, my love,
Across the shining seas.
My golden Helen, day and night
Love's light is o'er us flung,
Each hour for us is infinite,
And all the world is young.
There is none else but thou and I
Beneath the heaven's high dome,
Love's ministers around us fly,
Love leads us safely home.
Dodo buried her face in her hands with a low cry. "I have been cruel and wicked," she sobbed to herself. "I have despised the best that any man could ever give me, and I can never make him amends. I will tell him all. I will ask him to forgive me. Oh, poor Chesterford, poor Chesterford!"
She sat there sobbing in complete misery. She saw, as she had never seen before, the greatness of his love for her, and her wretched, miserable return for his gift.
"It is all over; I know he will die," she sobbed. "Supposing he does not know me—supposing he dies before I can tell him. Oh, my husband, my husband, live to forgive me!"
She was roused by a touch on her shoulder. Mrs. Vivian stood by her.
"You must be quick, Dodo," she said. "There is not much time."
Dodo did not answer her, but went upstairs. Before the bedroom door she stopped.
"I must speak to him alone," she said. "Send them all out."
"They have gone into the dressing-room," said Mrs. Vivian; "he is alone."
Dodo stayed no longer, but went in.
He was lying facing the door, and the shadow of death was on his face. But he recognised Dodo, and smiled and held out his hand.
Dodo ran to the bedside and knelt by it.
"Oh, Chesterford," she sobbed, "I have wronged you cruelly, and I can never make it up. I will tell you all."
"There is no need," said he; "I knew it all along."
Dodo raised her head. "You knew it all?" she asked.
"Yes, dear," he said; "it was by accident that I knew it."
"And you behaved to me as usual," said Dodo.
"Yes, my darling," said he; "you wouldn't have had me beat you, would you? Don't speak of it—there is not much time."
"Ah, forgive me, forgive me!" she cried. "How could I have done it?"
"It was not a case of forgiving," he said. "You are you, you are Dodo. My darling, there is not time to say much. You have been very good to me, and have given me more happiness than I ever thought I could have had."
"Chesterford! Chesterford!" cried Dodo pleadingly.
"Yes, darling," he answered; "my own wife. Dodo, I shall see the boy soon, and we will wait for you together. You will be mine again then. There shall be no more parting."
Dodo could not answer him. She could only press his hand and kiss his lips, which were growing very white.
It was becoming a fearful effort for him to speak. The words came slowly with long pauses.
"There is one more thing," he said. "You must marry Jack. You must make him very happy—as you have made me."
"Ah, don't say that," said Dodo brokenly; "don't cut me to the heart."
"My darling," he said, "my sweet own wife, I am so glad you told me. It has cleared up the only cloud. I wondered whether you would tell me. I prayed God you might, and He has granted it me. Good-bye, my own darling, good-bye."
Dodo lay in his arms, and kissed him passionately.
"Good-bye, dear," she sobbed.
He half raised himself in bed.
"Ah, my Dodo, my sweet wife," he said.
Then he fell back and lay very still.
How long Dodo remained there she did not know. She remembered Mrs. Vivian coming in and raising her gently, and they left the darkened room together.
Picture to yourself, or let me try to picture for you, a long, low, rambling house, covering a quite unnecessary area of ground, with many gables, tall, red-brick chimneys, unexpected corners, and little bow windows looking out from narrow turrets-a house that looks as if it had grown, rather than been designed and built. It began obviously with that little grey stone section, which seems to consist of small rooms with mullion windows, over which the ivy has asserted so supreme a dominion. The next occupant had been a man who knew how to make himself comfortable, but did not care in the least what sort of appearance his additions would wear to the world at large; to him we may assign that uncompromising straight wing which projects to the right of the little core of grey stone. Then came a series of attempts to screen the puritanical ugliness of the offending block. Some one ran up two little turrets at one end, and a clock tower in the middle; one side of it was made the main entrance of the house, and two red-tiled lines of building were built at right angles to it to form a three-sided quadrangle, and the carriage drive was brought up in a wide sweep to the door, and a sun-dial was planted down in the grass plot in the middle, in such a way that the sun could only peep at it for an hour or two every day, owing to the line of building which sheltered it on every side except the north. So the old house went on growing, and got more incongruous and more delightful with every addition.
The garden has had to take care of itself under such circumstances, and if the house has been pushing it back in one place, it has wormed itself in at another, and queer little lawns with flower beds of old-fashioned, sweet-smelling plants have crept in where you least expect them. This particular garden has always seemed to me the ideal of what a garden should be. It is made to sit in, to smoke in, to think in, to do nothing in. A wavy, irregular lawn forbids the possibility of tennis, or any game that implies exertion or skill, and it is the home of sweet smells, bright colour, and chuckling birds. There are long borders of mignonette, wallflowers and hollyhocks, and many old-fashioned flowers, which are going the way of all old fashions. London pride, with its delicate spirals and star-like blossoms, and the red drooping velvet of love-lies-a-bleeding. The thump of tennis balls, the flying horrors of ring-goal, even the clash of croquet is tabooed in this sacred spot. Down below, indeed, beyond that thick privet hedge, you may find, if you wish, a smooth, well-kept piece of grass, where, even now—if we may judge from white figures that cross the little square, where a swinging iron gate seems to remonstrate hastily and ill-temperedly with those who leave these reflective shades for the glare and publicity of tennis—a game seems to be in progress. If you had exploring tendencies in your nature, and had happened to find yourself, on the afternoon of which I propose to speak, in this delightful garden, you would sooner or later have wandered into a low-lying grassy basin, shut in on three sides by banks of bushy rose-trees. The faint, delicate smell of their pale fragrance would have led you there, or, perhaps, the light trickling of a fountain, now nearly summer dry. Perhaps the exploring tendency would account for your discovery. There, lying back in a basket-chair, with a half-read letter in her hand, and an accusing tennis racquet by her side, you would have found Edith Staines. She had waited after lunch to get her letters, and going out, meaning to join the others, she had found something among them that interested her, and she was reading a certain letter through a second time when you broke in upon her. After a few minutes she folded it up, put it back in the envelope, and sat still, thinking. "So she's going to marry him," she said half aloud, and she took up her racquet and went down to the tennis courts.
Ten days ago she had come down to stay with Miss Grantham, at the end of the London season. Miss Grantham's father was a somewhat florid baronet of fifty years of age. He had six feet of height, a cheerful, high-coloured face, and a moustache, which he was just conscious had military suggestions about it—though he had never been in the army—which was beginning to grow grey. His wife had been a lovely woman, half Spanish by birth, with that peculiarly crisp pronunciation that English people so seldom possess, and which is almost as charming to hear as a child's first conscious grasp of new words. She dressed remarkably well; her reading chiefly consisted of the Morning Post, French novels, and small books of morbid poetry, which seemed to her very chic, and she was worldly to the tips of her delicate fingers. She had no accomplishments of any sort, except a great knowledge of foreign languages. She argued, with much reason, that you could get other people to do your accomplishments for you. "Why should I worry myself with playing scales?" she said. "I can hire some poor wretch" (she never could quite manage the English "r") "to play to me by the hour. He will play much better than I ever should, and it is a form of charity as well."
Edith had made great friends with her, and disagreed with her on every topic under the sun. Lady Grantham admired Edith's vivacity, though her own line was serene elegance, and respected her success. Success was the one accomplishment that she really looked up to (partly, perhaps, because she felt she had such a large measure of it herself), and no one could deny that Edith was successful. She had enough broadness of view to admire success in any line, and would have had a vague sense of satisfaction in accepting the arm of; the best crossing-sweeper in London to take her in to dinner. She lived in a leonine atmosphere, and if you did not happen to meet a particular lion at her house, it was because "he was here on Monday, or is coming on Wednesday"; at any rate, not because he had not been asked.
Edith, however, felt thoroughly pleased with her quarters. She had hinted once that she had to go the day after to-morrow, but Nora Grantham had declined to argue the question. "You're only going home to do your music," she said. "We've got quite as good a piano here as you have, and, we leave you entirely to your own devices. Besides, you're mother's lion just now—isn't she, mother?—and you're not going to get out of the menagerie just yet. There is going to be a big feeding-time next week, and you will have to roar." Edith's remark about the necessity of going had been dictated only by a sense of duty, in order to give her hosts an opportunity of getting rid of her if they wished, and she was quite content to stop. She strolled down across the lawn to the tennis courts in a thoughtful frame of mind, and met Miss Grantham, who was coming to look for her.
"Where have you been, Edith?" she said. "They're all clamouring for you. Mother is sitting in the summer-house wondering why anybody wants to play tennis. She says none of them will ever be as good as Cracklin, and he's a cad."
"Grantie," said Edith, "Dodo's engaged."
"Oh, dear, yes," said Miss Grantham. "I knew she would be. How delightful. Jack's got his reward at last. May I tell everyone? How funny that she should marry a Lord Chesterford twice. It was so convenient that the first one shouldn't have had any brothers, and Dodo won't have to change her visiting cards; or have new handkerchiefs or anything. What a contrast, though!"
"No, it's private at present," said Edith. "Dodo has just written to me; she told me I might tell you. Do you altogether like it?"
"Of course I do," said Miss Grantham. "Only I should like to marry Jack myself. I wonder if he asked Dodo, or if Dodo asked him."
"I suppose it was inevitable," said Edith. "Dodo says that Chesterford's last words to her were that she should marry Jack."
"That was so sweet of him," murmured Miss Grantham. "He was very sweet and dear and remembering, wasn't he?"
Edith was still grave and doubtful.
"I'm sure there was nearly a crash," she said. "Do you remember the Brettons' ball? Chesterford didn't like that, and they quarrelled, I know, next morning."
"Oh, how interesting," said Miss Grantham. "But Dodo was quite right to go, I think. She was dreadfully bored, and she will not stand being bored. She might have done something much worse."
"It seems to be imperatively necessary for Dodo to do something unexpected," said Edith. "I wonder, oh, I wonder—Jack will be very happy for a time," she added inconsequently.
Edith's coming was the signal for serious play to begin. She entirely declined to play except with people who considered it, for the time being, the most important thing in the world, and naturally she played well.
A young man, of military appearance on a small scale, was sitting by Lady Grantham in the tent, and entertaining her with somewhat unfledged remarks.
"Miss Staines does play so arfly well, doesn't she?" he was saying. "Look at that stroke, perfectly rippin' you know, what?"
Mr. Featherstone had a habit of finishing all his sentences with "what?" He pronounced it to rhyme with heart.
Lady Grantham was reading Loti's book of pity and death. It answered the double purpose of being French and morbid.
"What book have you got hold of there?" continued Featherstone. "It's an awful bore reading books, dontcherthink, what? I wish one could get a feller to read them for me, and then tell one about them."
"I rather enjoy some books," said Lady Grantham. "This, for instance, is a good one," and she held the book towards him.
"Oh, that's French, isn't it?" remarked Featherstone. "I did French at school; don't know a word now. It's an arful bore having to learn French, isn't it? Couldn't I get a feller to learn it for me?"
Lady Grantham reflected.
"I daresay you could," she replied. "You might get your man—tiger—how do you call him?—to learn it. It's capable of comprehension to the lowest intellect," she added crisply.
"Oh, come, Lady Grantham," he replied, "you don't think so badly of me as that, do you?"
Lady Grantham was seized with a momentary desire to run her parasol through his body, provided it could be done languidly and without effort. Her daughter had come up, and sat down in a low chair by her. Featherstone was devoting the whole of his great mind to the end of his moustache.
"Nora," she said, quietly, "this little man must be taken away. I can't quite manage him. Tell him to go and play about."
"Dear mother," she replied, "bear him a little longer. He can't play about by himself."
Lady Grantham got gently up from her chair, and thrust an exquisite little silver paper-knife between the leaves of her book.
"I think I will ask you to take my chair across to that tree opposite," she said to him, without looking at him.
He followed her, dragging the chair after him. Halfway across the lawn they met a footman bringing tea down into the ground.
"Take the chair," she said. Then she turned to her little man. "Many thanks. I won't detain you," she said, with a sweet smile. "So good of you to have come here this afternoon."
Featherstone was impenetrable. He lounged back, if so small a thing can be said to lounge, and sat down again by Miss Grantham.
"Fascinatin' woman your mother is," he said. "Arfly clever, isn't she? What? Knows French and that sort of thing. I can always get along all right in France. If you only swear at the waiters they understand what you want all right, you know."
Two or three other fresh arrivals made it possible for another set to be started, and Mr. Featherstone was induced to play, in spite of his protestations that he had quite given up tennis for polo. Lady Grantham finished her Loti, and moved back to the tea-table, where Edith was sitting, fanning herself with a cabbage leaf, and receiving homage on the score of her tennis-playing. Lady Grantham did not offer to give anybody any tea; she supposed they would take it when they wanted it, but she wished someone would give her a cup.
"What's the name of the little man and his moustache?" she asked Edith, indicating Mr. Featherstone, who was performing wild antics in the next court.
Edith informed her.
"How did he get here?" demanded Lady Grantham.
"Oh, he's a friend of mine. I think he came to see me," replied Edith. "He lives somewhere about. I suppose you find him rather trying. It doesn't matter; he's of no consequence."
"My dear Edith, between your sporting curate, and your German conductor, and your Roman Catholic cure, and this man, one's life isn't safe."
"You won't see the good side of those sort of people," said Edith. "If they've got rather overwhelming manners, and aren't as silent and bored as you think young men ought to be, you think they're utter outsiders."
"I only want to know if there are any more of that sort going to turn up. Think of the positions you put me in! When I went into the drawing-room yesterday, for instance, before lunch, I find a Roman Catholic priest there, who puts up two fingers at me, and says 'Benedicite.'"
Edith lay back in her chair and laughed.
"How I should like to have seen you! Did you think he was saying grace, or did you tell him not to be insolent?"
"I behaved with admirable moderation," said Lady Grantham. "I even prepared to be nice to him. But he had sudden misgivings, and said, 'I beg your pardon, I thought you were Miss Staines.' I saw I was not wanted, and retreated. That is not all. Bob told me that I had to take a curate in to dinner last night, and asked me not to frighten him. I suppose he thought I wanted to say 'Bo,' or howl at him. The curate tried me. I sat down when we got to the table, and he turned to me and said, 'I beg your pardon'—they all beg my pardon—'but I'm going to say grace.' Then I prepared myself to talk night schools and district visiting; but he turned on me, and asked what I thought of Orme's chances for the St. Leger."
"Oh, dear! oh, dear!" cried Edith; "he told me afterwards that you seemed a very serious lady."
"I didn't intend to encourage that," continued Lady Grantham; "so I held on to district visiting. We shook our heads together over dissent in Wales. We split over Calvinism—who was Calvin? We renounced society; and I was going to work him a pair of slippers. We were very edifying. Then he sang comic songs in the drawing-room, and discussed the methods of cheating at baccarat. I was a dead failure."
"Anyhow, you're a serious lady," said Edith.
"That young man will come to a bad end," said Lady Grantham; "so will your German conductor. He ordered beer in the middle of the morning, to-day—the second footman will certainly give notice—and he smoked a little clay pipe after dinner in the dining-room. Then this afternoon comes this other friend of yours. He says, 'Arfly rippin' what.'"
"He said you were arfly fascinatin' what," interpolated Miss Grantham, "when you went away to read your book. You were very rude to him."
Sir Robert Grantham had joined the party. He was a great hand at adapting his conversation to his audience, and making everyone conscious that they ought to feel quite at home. He recounted at some length a series of tennis matches which he had taken part in a few years ago. A strained elbow had spoiled his chances of winning, but the games were most exciting, and it was generally agreed at the time that the form of the players was quite first-class. He talked about Wagner and counterpoint to Edith. He asked his vicar abstruse questions on the evidence of the immortality of the soul after death; he discussed agriculture and farming with tenants, to whom he always said "thank ye," instead of "thank you," in order that they might feel quite at their ease; he lamented the want of physique in the English army to Mr. Featherstone, who was very short, and declared that the average height of Englishmen was only five feet four. As he said this he drew himself up, and made it quite obvious that he himself was six feet high, and broad in proportion.
A few more cups of tea were drunk, and a few more sets played, and the party dispersed. Edith was the only guest in the house, and she and Frank, the Oxford son, stopped behind to play a game or two more before dinner. Lady Grantham and Nora strolled up through the garden towards the house, while Sir Robert remained on the ground, and mingled advice, criticism, and approbation to the tennis players; Frank's back-handed stroke, he thought, was not as good as it might be, and Edith could, certainly put half fifteen on to her game if judiciously coached. Neither of the players volleyed as well as himself, but volleying was his strong point, and they must not be discouraged. Frank's attitude to his father was that of undisguised amusement; but he found him very entertaining.
They were all rather late for dinner, and Lady Grantham was waiting for them in the drawing-room. Frank and his father were down before Edith, and Lady Grantham was making remarks on their personal appearance.
"You look very, hot and red," she was saying to her son, "and I really wish you would brush your hair better. I don't know what young men are coming to, they seem to think that everything is to be kept waiting for them."
Frank's attitude was one of serene indifference.
"Go on, go on," he said; "I don't mind."
Edith was five minutes later. Lady Grantham remarked on the importance of being in time for dinner, and hoped they wouldn't all die from going to bed too soon afterwards. Frank apologised for his mother.
"Don't mind her, Miss Staines," he said, "they're only her foreign manners. She doesn't know how to behave. It's all right. I'm going to take you in, mother. Are we going to have grouse?"
That evening Miss Grantham and Edith "talked Dodo," as the latter called it, till the small hours.
She produced Dodo's letter, and read extracts.
"Of course, we sha'n't be married till after next November," wrote Dodo. "Jack wouldn't hear of it, and it would seem very unfeeling. Don't you think so? It will be odd going back to Winston again. Mind you come and stay with us at Easter."
"I wonder if Dodo ever thinks with regret of anything or anybody," said Edith. "Imagine writing like that—asking me if I shouldn't think it unfeeling."
"Oh, but she says she would think it unfeeling," said Miss Grantham. "That's so sweet and remembering of her."
"But don't you see," said Edith, "she evidently thinks it is so good of her to have feelings about it at all. She might as well call attention to the fact that she always puts her shoes and stockings on to go to church."
"There's a lot of women who would marry again before a year was out if it wasn't for convention," said Miss Grantham.
"That's probably the case with Dodo," remarked Edith. "Dodo doesn't care one pin for the memory of that man. She knows it, and she knows I know it. Why does she say that sort of thing to me? He was a good man, too, and I'm not sure that he wasn't great. Chesterford detested me, but I recognised him."
"Oh, I don't think he was great," said Miss Grantham. "Didn't he always strike you as a little stupid?"
"I prefer stupid people," declared Edith roundly. "They are so restful. They're like nice; sweet, white bread; they quench your hunger as well as pâté de foie gras, and they are much better for you."
"I think they make you just a little thirsty," remarked Miss Grantham. "I should have said they were more like cracknels. Besides, do you think that it's an advantage to associate with people who are good for you? It produces a sort of rabies in me. I want to bite them."
"You like making yourself out worse than you are, Grantie," said Edith.
"I think you like making Dodo out worse than she is," returned Nora. "I always used to think you were very fond of her."
"I am fond of her," said Edith; "that's why I'm dissatisfied with her."
"What a curious way of showing your affection," said Miss Grantham. "I love Dodo, and if I was a man I should like to many her."
"Dodo is too dramatic," said Edith. "She never gets off the stage; and sometimes she plays to the gallery, and then the stalls say, 'How cheap she's making herself.' She has the elements of a low comedian about her."
"And the airs of a tragedy queen, I suppose," added Miss Grantham.
"Exactly," said Edith; "and the consequence is that she as a burlesque sometimes: She is her own parody."
"Darling Dodo," said Grantie with feeling. "I do want to see her again."
"All her conduct after his death," continued Edith, "that was the tragedy queen; she shut herself up in that great house, quite alone, for two months, and went to church with a large prayer-book every morning, at eight. But it was burlesque all the same. Dodo isn't sorry like that. The gallery yelled with applause."
"I thought it was so sweet of her," murmured Grantie. "I suppose I'm gallery too."
"Then she went abroad," continued Edith, "and sat down and wept by the waters of Aix. But she soon took down her harp. She gave banjo parties on the lake, and sang coster songs."
"Mrs. Vane told me she recovered her spirits wonderfully at Aix," remarked Miss Grantham.
"And played baccarat, and recovered other people's money," pursued Edith. "If she'd taken the first train for Aix after the funeral, I should have respected her."
"Oh, that would have been horrid," said Miss Grantham; "besides, it wouldn't have been the season."
"That's true," said Edith. "Dodo probably remembered that."
"Oh, you sha'n't abuse Dodo any more," said Miss Grantham. "I think it's perfectly horrid of you. Go and play me something."
Perhaps the thought of Chesterford was in Edith's mind as she sat down to the piano, for she played a piece of Mozart's "Requiem," which is the saddest music in the world.
Miss Grantham shivered a little. The long wailing notes, struck some chord, within her, which disturbed her peace of mind.
"What a dismal thing," she said, when Edith had finished. "You make me feel like Sunday evening after a country church."
Edith stood looking out of the window. The moon was up, and the great stars were wheeling in their courses through the infinite vault. A nightingale was singing loud in the trees, and the little mysterious noises of night stole about among the bushes. As Edith thought of Chesterford she remembered how the Greeks mistook the passionate song of the bird for the lament of the dead, and it did not seem strange to her. For love, sometimes goes hand-in-hand with death.
She turned back into the room again.
"God forgive her," she said, "if we cannot."
"I'm not going to bed with that requiem in my ears," said Miss Grantham. "I should dream of hearses."
Edith went to the piano, and broke into a quick, rippling movement.
Miss Grantham listened, and felt she ought to know what it was.
"What is it?" she said, when Edith had finished.
"It is the scherzo from the 'Dodo Symphony,'" she said. "I composed it two years ago at Winston."
Dodo had written to Edith from Zermatt, where she was enjoying herself amazingly. Mrs. Vane was there, and Mr. and Mrs. Algernon Spencer, and Prince Waldenech and Jack. As there would have been some natural confusion in the hotel if Dodo had called herself Lady Chesterford, when Lord Chesterford was also there, she settled to be called Miss Vane. This tickled Prince Waldenech enormously; it seemed to him a capital joke.
Dodo was sitting in the verandah of the hotel one afternoon, drinking black coffee and smoking cigarettes. Half the hotel were scandalised at her, and usually referred to her as "that Miss Vane"; the other half adored her, and went [on] expeditions with her, and took minor parts in her theatricals, and generally played universal second fiddle.
Dodo enjoyed this sort of life. There was in her an undeveloped germ of simplicity, that found pleasure in watching the slow-footed, cows driven home from the pastures, in sitting with Jack—regardless of her assumed name—in the crocus-studded meadows, or by the side of the swirling glacier-fed stream that makes the valley melodious. She argued, with great reason, that she had already shocked all the people that were going to be shocked, so much that it didn't matter what she did; while the other contingent, who were not going to be shocked, were not going to be shocked. "Everyone must either be shocked or not shocked," she said, "and they're that already. That's why Prince Waldenech and I are going for a moonlight walk next week when the moon comes back."
Dodo had made great friends with the Prince's half-sister, a Russian on her mother's side, and she was reading her extracts out of her unwritten book of the Philosophy of Life, an interesting work, which varied considerably according to Dodo's mood. Just now it suited Dodo to be in love with life.
"You are a Russian by nature and sympathy, my dear Princess," she was saying, "and you are therefore in a continual state of complete boredom. You think you are bored here, because it is not Paris; in Paris you are quite as much bored with all your fêtes, and dances, and parties as you are here. I tell you frankly you are wrong. Why don't you come and sit in the grass, and look at the crocuses, and throw stones into the stream like me."
The Princess stretched out a delicate arm.
"I don't think I ever threw a stone in my life," she said dubiously. "Would it amuse me, do you think?"
"Not at first," said Dodo; "and you will never be amused at all if you think about it."
"What am I to think about then?" she asked.
"You must think about the stone," said Dodo decisively, "you must think about the crocuses, you must think about the cows."
"It's all so new to me," remarked the Princess. "We never think about cows in Russia."
"That's just what I'm saying," said Dodo. "You must get out of yourself. Anything, does to think about, and nobody is bored unless they think about being bored. When one has the whole world to choose from, and only one subject in it that can make one feel bored, it really shows a want of resource to think about that. Then you ought to take walks and make yourself tired."
The Princess cast a vague eye on the Matterhorn.
"That sort of horror?" she asked.
"No, you needn't begin with the Matterhorn," said Dodo, laughing. "Go to the glaciers, and get rather cold and wet. Boredom is chiefly physical."
"I'm sure being cold and wet would bore me frightfully," she said.
"No, no—a big no," cried Dodo. "No one is ever bored unless they are comfortable. That's the great principle. There isn't time for it. You cannot be bored and something else at the same time. Being comfortable doesn't count; that's our normal condition. But you needn't be uncomfortable in order to be bored. It's very comfortable sitting here with you, and I'm not the least bored. I should poison myself if I were bored: I can't think why you don't."
"I will do anything you recommend," said the Princess placidly. "You are the only woman I know who never appears to be bored. I wonder if my husband would bore you. He is very big, and very good, and he eats a large breakfast, and looks after his serfs. He bores me to extinction. He would wear black for ten years if I poisoned myself."
A shade of something passed over Dodo's face. It might have been regret, or stifled remembrance, or a sudden twinge of pain, and it lasted an appreciable fraction of a second.
"I can imagine being bored with that kind of man," she said in a moment.
The Princess was lying back in her chair,' and did not notice a curious hardness in Dodo's voice.
"I should so-like to introduce you to him," said she. "I should like to shut you up with him for a month at our place on the Volga. It snows a good deal there, and he goes out in the snow and shoots animals, and comes back in the evening with a red face, and tells me all about it. It is very entertaining, but a trifle monotonous. He does not know English, nor German, nor French. He laughs very loud. He is devoted to me. Do go and stay with him. I think I'll join you when you've been there three weeks. He is quite safe. I shall not be afraid. He writes to me every day, and suggests that he should join me here."
Dodo shifted her position and looked up at the Matterhorn.
"Yes," she said. "I should certainly be bored with him, but I'm not sure that I would show it."
"He wouldn't like you at all," continued the Princess. "He would think you loud. That is so odd. He thinks it unfeminine to smoke. He has great ideas about the position of women. He gave me a book of private devotions bound in the parchment from a bear he had shot on my last birthday."
Dodo laughed.
"I'm sure you need not be bored with him," she said. "He must have a strong vein of unconscious humour about him."
"I'm quite unconscious of it," said the Princess. "You cannot form the slightest idea of what he's like till you see him. I almost feel inclined to tell him to come here."
"Ah, but you Russian women have such liberty," said Dodo. "You can tell your husband not to expect to see you again for three months. We can't do that. An English husband and wife are like two Siamese twins. Until about ten years ago they used to enter the drawing-room, when they were going out to dinner, arm-in-arm."
"That's very bourgeois," said the Princess. "You are rather a bourgeois race. You are very hearty, and pleased to see one, and all that. There's Lord Chesterford. You're a great friend of his, aren't you? He looks very distinguished. I should say he was usually bored."
"He was my husband's first cousin," said Dodo. Princess Alexandrina of course knew that Miss Vane was a widow. "I was always an old friend of his—as long as I can remember, that's to say. Jack and I are going up towards the Eiffel to watch the sunset. Come with us."
"I think I'll see the sunset from here," she said. "You're going up a hill, I suppose?"
"Oh, but you can't see it from here," said Dodo. "That great mass of mountain is in the way."
The Princess considered.
"I don't think I want to see the sunset after all," she said. "I've just found the Kreutzer Sonata. I've been rural enough for one day, and I want a breath of civilised air. Do you know, I never feel bored when you are talking to me."
"Oh, that's part of my charm, isn't it?" said Dodo to Jack, who had lounged up to where they were sitting.
"Dodo's been lecturing me, Lord Chesterford," said the Princess. "Does she ever lecture you?"
"She gave me quite a long lecture once," said he. "She recommended me to live in a cathedral town."
"A cathedral town," said the Princess. "That's something fearful, isn't it? Why did you tell him to do that?" she said.
"I think it was a mistake," said Dodo. "Anyhow, Jack didn't take my advice. I shouldn't recommend him to do it now, but he has a perfect genius for being domestic. Everyone is very domestic in cathedral towns. They all dine at seven and breakfast at a quarter past eight—next morning, you understand. That quarter past is delightful. But Jack said he didn't want to score small successes," she added, employing a figure grammatically known as "hiatus."
"My husband is very domestic," said the Princess. "But he isn't a bit like Lord Chesterford. He would like to live with me in a little house in the country, and never have anyone to stay with us. That would be so cheerful during the winter months."
"Jack, would you like to live with your wife in a little house in the country?" demanded Dodo.
"I don't think I should ever marry a woman who wanted to," remarked Jack, meeting Dodo's glance.
"Imagine two people really liking each other better than all the rest of the world," said the Princess, "and living on milk, and love, and wild roses, and fresh eggs! I can't bear fresh eggs."
"My egg this morning wasn't at all fresh," said Dodo. "I wish I'd thought of sending it to your room."
"Would you never get tired of your wife, don't you think," continued the Princess, "if you shut yourselves up in the country? Supposing she wished to pick roses when you wanted to play lawn tennis?"
"Oh, Jack, it wouldn't do," said Dodo. "You'd make her play lawn tennis."
"My husband and I never thought of playing lawn tennis," said the Princess. "I shall try that when we meet next. It's very amusing, isn't it?"
"It makes you die of laughing," said Dodo, solemnly. "Come, Jack, we're going to see the sunset. Good-bye, dear. Go and play with your maid. She can go out of the room while you think of something, and then come in and guess what you've thought of."
Jack and Dodo strolled up through the sweet-smelling meadows towards the Riffelberg. A cool breeze was streaming down from the "furrow cloven alls" of the glacier, heavy with the clean smell of pine woods and summer flowers, and thick with a hundred mingling sounds. The cows were being driven homewards, and the faint sounds of bells were carried down to them from the green heights above. Now and then they passed a herd of goats, still nibbling anxiously at the wayside grass, followed by some small ragged shepherd, who brushed his long hair away from his eyes to get a better look at this dazzling, fair-skinned woman, who evidently belonged to quite another order of beings from his wrinkled, early-old mother. One of them held out to Dodo a wilted little bunch of flowers, crumpled with much handling, but she did not seem to notice him. After they had passed he tossed them away, and ran off after his straying flock. Southwards, high above them, stretched the long lines of snow spread out under the feet of the Matterhorn, which sat like some huge sphinx, unapproachable, remote. Just below lay the village, sleeping in the last rays of the sun, which shone warmly on the red, weathered planks. Light blue smoke curled slowly up from the shingled roofs, and streamed gently down the valley in a thin, transparent haze.
"Decidedly, it's a very nice world," said Dodo. "I'm so glad I wasn't born a Russian. The Princess never enjoys anything at all, except telling one how bored she is. But she's very amusing, and I gave her a great deal of good advice."
"What have you been telling her to do," asked Jack.
"Oh, anything. I recommended her to sit in the meadows, and throw stones and get her feet wet. It's not affectation at all in her, she really is hopelessly bored. It's as easy for her to be bored as for me not to be. Jack, what will you do to me if I get bored when we're married?"
"I shall tell you to throw stones," said he.
"As long as you don't look at me reproachfully," said Dodo, "I sha'n't mind. Oh, look at the Matterhorn. Isn't it big?"
"I don't like it," said Jack; "it always looks as if it was taking notice, and reflecting how dreadfully small one is."
"I used to think Vivy was like that," said Dodo. "She was very good to me once or twice. I wonder what I shall be like when I'm middle-aged. I can't bear the thought of getting old, but that won't stop it. I don't want to sit by the fire and purr. I don't think I could do it."
"One won't get old all of a sudden, though," said Jack; "that's a great consideration. The change will come so gradually that one won't know it."
"Ah, don't," said Dodo quickly. "It's like dying by inches, losing hold of life gradually. It won't come to me like that. I shall wake up some morning and find I'm not young any more."
"Well, it won't come yet," said Jack with sympathy.
"Well, I'm not going to bother my head about it," said Dodo, "there isn't time. There's Maud and her little Spencer. He's a dear little man, and he ought to be put in a band-box with some pink cotton-wool, and taken out every Sunday morning."
Dodo whistled shrilly on her fingers to attract their attention.
Mr. Spencer had been gathering flowers and putting them into a neat, little tin box, which he slung over his shoulders. He was dressed in a Norfolk jacket carefully buttoned round his waist, with knickerbockers and blue worsted stockings. He wore a small blue ribbon in his top button-hole, and a soft felt hat. He carried his flowers home in the evening, and always remembered to press them before he went to bed. He and Maud were sitting on a large grey rock by the wayside, reading the Psalms for the seventeenth evening of the month.