Chapter I (3)

For a moment Lady Sellingworth felt anger against the stranger. For a moment she wished she had not undertaken the journey. It occurred to her that perhaps she had made a humiliating mistake when she thought that the brown man wished, and intended, her to go to Paris because he was going. Her pride was alarmed. She saw plainly for a moment the mud into which vanity had led her, and she longed to get out of the train and to remain in London. But how could she account to her maid for such a sudden change of plans? What could she say to her household? She knew, of course, that she owed them no explanation. But still--and her friends? She had told everybody that she was going to Paris. They would think her crazy for giving up the journey after she was actually in the train. And she had seen two or three acquaintances on the platform. No; she must make the journey now. It was too late to give it up. But she wished intensely she had not undertaken it.

At the moment of this wish of hers, coming from the Pullman, the brown man walked slowly by on the platform, alone. His eyes were searching the train with keen attention. But Lady Sellingworth happened to be leaning back, and he did not see her. She knew he was looking for her. He went on out of her sight. She sat still in her corner, and presently saw him coming back. This time he saw her, and did something which for the moment startled her. On the window of the carriage, next the seat opposite to hers, was pasted a label with “Reserved” printed on it in big letters. Underneath was written: “For the Countess of Sellingworth.” When the man saw Lady Sellingworth in her corner he gave no sign of recognition but he took out of the breast pocket of his travelling coat a pocket-book, went deliberately up to the window, looked hard at the label, and then wrote something--her name, no doubt--in his book. This done, he put the book back in his pocket and walked gravely away without glancing at her again.

And now Lady Sellingworth no longer regretted that she was going to Paris. What the man had just done had reassured her. It was now evident to her that the first time they had met in Bond Street he had not known who she was or anything about her. He must simply have been struck by her beauty, and from that moment had wished to know her. Ever since then he must have been longing to know who she was. The fact that he had evidently not discovered her name till he had read it on the label pasted on the railway carriage window convinced her that, in spite of his boldness in showing her his feelings, he was a scrupulous man. A careless man could certainly have found out who she was at the Carlton, by asking a waiter. Evidently he had not chosen to do that. The omission showed delicacy, refinement of nature. It pleased her. It made her feel safe. She felt that the man was a gentleman, one who could respect a woman. Sir Seymour had been wrong in his hasty judgment. An outsider would not have behaved in such a way. That the stranger had deliberately taken down her name in his book while she was watching him did not displease her at all. He wished her to know of his longing, but he was evidently determined to keep it hidden from others.

She felt now in the very heart of a romantic adventure, and thrilled with excitement about the future. What would happen when they all got to Paris? It was evident to her now that he did not know she had an apartment there--unless, indeed, he had first seen her in Paris and had, perhaps, followed her to London! But even if that were so it was unlikely that he knew where she lived.

In any case she knew he was going to the Ritz.

The train flew on towards the sea while she mused over possibilities and imagined events in Paris.

She knew now, of course, that the stranger was absolutely out of her world. His ignorance proved to her that he could not be in any society she moved in. She guessed that he was some charming young man from a distance, come to Europe perhaps for the first time--some ardent youth from Brazil, from Peru, from Mexico! The guess gave colour to the adventure. He knew her name now. She wondered what his name was. And she wondered about the old woman in the wig and about the sardonic friend. In what relation did the three people stand to each other?

She could not divine. But she thought that perhaps the old woman was the mother of the man she wished to know.

She had a private cabin on the boat. It was on the top deck. But, as the weather was fine and the sea fairly calm, her maid occupied it with the jewel-case, while she sat in the open on a deck chair, well wrapped up in a fur rug. Presently an acquaintance, a colonel in the Life Guards, joined her, established himself in a chair at her side, and kept her busy with conversation.

When the ship drew out into the Channel several men began to pace up and down the deck with the sturdy determination of good sailors resolved upon getting health from the salt briskness of the sea. Among them were the two men of the trio. The old woman had evidently gone into hiding.

As Lady Sellingworth conversed with her colonel she made time, as a woman can, for a careful and detailed consideration of the man on whom her thoughts were concentrated. Although he did not look at her as he passed up and down the deck, she knew that he had seen where she was sitting. And, without letting the colonel see what she was doing, she followed the tall, athletic figure in the long, rough, greenish-brown overcoat with her eyes, looking away when it drew very near to her. And now and then she looked at its companion.

In the Paris _rapide_ she was again alone in a carriage reserved for her. She did not go into the restaurant to lunch, as she hated eating in a crowd. Instead, her maid brought her a luncheon basket which had been supplied by the chef in Berkeley Square. After eating she smoked a cigarette and read the French papers which she had bought at the Calais station. And then she sat still and looked out of the window, and thought and dreamed and wondered and desired.

Although she did not know it, she was living through almost the last of those dreams which are the rightful property of youth, but which sometimes, obstinate and deceitful, haunt elderly minds, usually to their undoing.

The light began to fade and the dream to become more actual. She lived again as she had lived in the days when she was a reigning beauty, when there was no question of her having to seek for the joys and the adventures of life. In the twilight of France she reigned.

A shadow passed by in the corridor. She had scarcely seen it. Rather she had felt its passing. But the dream was gone. She was alert, tense, expectant. Paris was near. And he was near. She linked the two together in her mind. And she felt that she was drawing close to a climax in her life. A conviction took hold of her that some big, some determining event was going to happen in Paris, that she would return to London different--a changed woman.

Happiness changes! She was travelling in search of happiness. The wild blood in her leaped at the thought of grasping happiness. And she felt reckless. She would dare all, would do anything, if only she might capture happiness. Dignity, self-respect, propriety, the conventions--what value had they really? To bow down to them--does that bring happiness? Out of the way with them, and a straight course for the human satisfaction which comes only in following the dictates of the nature one is born with!

Lights twinkled here and there in the gloom. Again the shadow passed in the corridor. A moment later Lady Sellingworth’s maid appeared to take charge of the jewel-case.

The crowd at the Gare du Nord was great, and the station was badly lit. Lady Sellingworth did not see her reason for coming to Paris. A carriage was waiting for her. She got into it with her jewel-case, and drove away to her apartment, leaving her maid to follow with the luggage.

In the evening she dined alone, and she went to bed early.

She had made no engagements in Paris; had not told any of her friends there that she was going to be there for some days. She had no wish to go into society. Her wish was to be perfectly free. But as she lay in bed in her pretty, familiar room, she began to wonder what she was going to do. She had come to Paris suddenly, driven by an intense caprice, without making any plans, without even deciding how long she was going to stay. She had imagined that in loneliness she would keep a hold on liberty. But now she began to wonder about things.

Even her secret wildness did not tell her that she could “knock about” in Paris like a man. For one thing she was far too well known for that. Many people might recognize her. When she had been much younger she had certainly been to all sorts of odd places, and had had a wonderful time. But somehow, with the passing of the years, she had learnt to pay some attention to the imp within her, though there were moments when she defied him. And he told her that she simply could not now do many of the daring things which she had done when she was a brilliant and lovely young woman. Besides, what would be the use? Almost suddenly she realized the difficulty of her situation.

She could not very well go about Paris alone. And yet to go about in company must inevitably frustrate the only purpose which had brought her to Paris. She had come there with an almost overwhelming desire, but with no plan for its realization.

But surely he had a plan. He must certainly have one if, as she still believed, in spite of the trio, he had meant her to come to Paris when he did. She wondered intensely what his plan was. He looked very determined, audacious even, in spite of the curious and almost pleading softness of his eyes, a softness which had haunted her imagination ever since she had first seen him. She felt convinced that, once thoroughly roused, he would be a man who would stick at very little, perhaps at nothing, in carrying out a design he had formed. His design was surely to make her acquaintance, and to make it in Paris. Yet he had come over with two people, while she had come alone. What was he going to do? She longed to know his plan. She wished to conform to it. Yet how could she do that in total ignorance of what his plan was? Perhaps he knew her address and would communicate with her. But that morning he had not even known her name! She felt excited but puzzled. As the night grew late she told herself that she must cease from thinking and try to sleep. She must leave the near future in the lap of the gods. But she could not make her mind a blank. Over and over again she revolved the matter which obsessed her in her mind. Almost for the first time in her life she ardently wished she were a man, able to take the initiative in any matter of love.

The clocks of Paris were striking three before at last she fell asleep.

When she woke in the morning late and had had her coffee she did not know how she was going to spend the day. She felt full of anticipation, excited, yet vague, and usually lonely. The post brought her nothing. About noon she was dressed and ready for the day. She must go out, of course. It would be folly to remain shut up indoors after all the bother of the journey. She must lunch somewhere, do something afterwards. There was a telephone in her bedroom. She knew lots of people in Paris. She might telephone to someone to join her at lunch at the Ritz or somewhere. Afterwards they might go to a matinee or to a concert. But she was afraid of getting immersed in engagements, of losing her freedom. She thought over her friends and acquaintances in Paris. Which of them would be the safest to communicate with? Which would be most useful to her, and would trouble her least? Finally she decided on telephoning to a rich American spinster whom she had known for years, a woman who was what is called “large minded,” who was very tolerant, very understanding, and not more curious than a woman has to be. Caroline Briggs could comprehend a hint without demanding facts to explain it.

She telephoned to Caroline Briggs. Miss Briggs was at home and replied, expressing pleasure and readiness to lunch with Lady Sellingworth anywhere. After a moment’s hesitation Lady Sellingworth suggested the Ritz. Miss Briggs agreed that the Ritz would be the best place.

They met at the Ritz at one o’clock.

Miss Briggs, a small, dark, elderly and animated person, immensely rich and full of worldly wisdom, wondered why Lady Sellingworth had come over to Paris, was told “clothes,” and smilingly accepted the explanation. She knew Lady Sellingworth very well, and, being extremely sharp and intuitive, realized at once that clothes had nothing to do with this sudden visit. A voice within her said: “It’s a man!”

And presently the man came into the restaurant, accompanied by the eternal old woman in the black wig.

Now Caroline Briggs had an enormous and cosmopolitan acquaintance. She was the sort of woman who knows wealthy Greeks, Egyptian pashas, Turkish princesses, and wonderful exotic personages from Brazil, Persia, Central America and the Indies. She gave parties which were really romantic, which had a flavour, as someone had said, of the novels of Ouida brought thoroughly up to date. Lady Sellingworth had been to some of them, and had not forgotten them. And it had occurred to her that if anyone she knew was acquainted with the brown man, that person might be Caroline Briggs. She had, therefore, come to the Ritz with a faint hope in her mind.

Miss Brigs happened to be seated with her smart back to the man and old woman when they entered the restaurant, and they sat down at a table behind her, but in full view of Lady Sellingworth, who wished to draw her companion’s attention to them, but who also was reluctant to show any interest in them. She knew that Miss Briggs knew a great deal about her, and she did not mind that. But nevertheless, she felt at this moment a certain _pudeur_ which was almost like the _pudeur_ of a girl. Had it come to her with her entrance into the fifties? Or was it a cruel gift from her imp? She was not sure; but she could not persuade herself to draw Miss Briggs’s attention to the people who interested her until the bill was presented and it was almost time to leave the restaurant.

Then at last she could keep silence no longer, and she said:

“The people one sees in Paris seem to become more and more extraordinary! Many of them one can’t place at all.”

Miss Briggs, who had lived in Paris for quite thirty years, remarked:

“Do you think they are more extraordinary than the people one sees about London?”

“Yes, really I do. That old woman in the black wig over there, for instance, intrigues me. Where can she come from? Who can she be?”

Miss Briggs looked carelessly round, and at once understood the reason of Lady Sellingworth’s remarks. “The man” was before her, and she knew it. How? She could not have said. Had she been asked she would probably have replied: “My bones told me.”

“Oh,” she said, after the look. “She’s the type of old woman who is born and brought up in Brazil, and who, when she is faded, comes to European spas for her health. I have met many of her type at Aix and Baden Baden.”

“Ah!” replied Lady Sellingworth carelessly. “You don’t know her then?”

“No. But I have seen her two or three times within the last few months--three times to be exact. Twice she has travelled in the same train as I was in, though not in the same compartment, and once I saw her dining here. Each time she was with that marvelously handsome young man. I really noticed her--don’t blame me--because of him.”

“Perhaps he’s her son.”

“He may be her husband.”

“Oh--but the difference in their ages! She must be seventy at least, if not more.”

“She may be very rich, too,” said Miss Briggs dryly.

Lady Sellingworth remembered that it was always said that Miss Briggs’s enormous fortune had kept her a spinster. She was generally supposed to be one of those unfortunately cynical millionairesses who are unable to believe in man’s disinterested affection.

“Shall we go?” said Lady Sellingworth.

Miss Briggs assented, and they left the restaurant.

They spent the afternoon together at a matinee at the Opera Comique, and afterwards Miss Briggs came to tea at Lady Sellingworth’s apartment. Not another word had been said about the two strangers, but Lady Sellingworth fully realized that Caroline Briggs had found her out. When her friend finally got up to go she asked Lady Sellingworth how long she intended to stay in Paris.

“Oh, only a day or two,” Lady Sellingworth said. “I’ve got to see two or three dressmakers. Then I shall be off. I haven’t told anyone that I am here. It didn’t seem worth while.”

“And you won’t be dull all alone?”

“Oh, no, I am never dull. I love two or three days of complete rest now and then. One isn’t made of cast iron, although some people seem to think one is, or at ay rate ought to be.”

There was a tired sound in her voice as she said this, and Miss Briggs’s small and sharp, but kind, eyes examined her face rather critically. But Miss Briggs only said:

“Come and dine with me to-morrow night in my house. I shall be quite alone.”

“Thank you, Caroline.”

She spoke rather doubtfully and paused. But finally she said:

“I will with pleasure. What time?”

“Half-past eight.”

When Miss Briggs had gone Lady Sellingworth gave way to an almost desperate fit of despondency. She felt ashamed of herself, like a sensitive person found out in some ugly fault. She sat down, and almost for the first time in her life mentally she wrestled with herself.

Something, she did not quite know what, in Caroline Briggs’s look, or manner, or surmised mental attitude that day, had gone home to her. And that remark, “He may be her husband,” followed by, “she may be very rich, too,” had dropped upon her like a stone.

It had never occurred to her that the old woman in the wig might be the young man’s wife. But she now realized that it was quite possible.

She had always known, since she had known Caroline, that her friend was one of those few women who are wholly free from illusions. Miss Briggs had not only never fallen into follies; she had avoided natural joys. She had perhaps even been the slave of her self-respect. Never at all good-looking though certainly not ugly, she had been afraid of the effect of her wealth upon men. And because she was so rich she had never chosen to marry. She was possibly too much of a cynic, but she had always preserved her personal dignity. No one had ever legitimately laughed at her, and no one had ever had the chance of contemptuously pitying her. She must have missed a great deal, but now in middle-age she was surround by friends who respected her.

That was something.

And--Lady Sellingworth was sure of it--Caroline was not ravaged by the Furies who attack “foolish” middle-aged women.

What did Caroline Briggs think of her? What must she think?

Caroline knew well nearly all the members of the “old guard,” and most of them were fond of her. She had never got in any woman’s way with a man, and she was never condemnatory. So among women she was a very popular woman. Many people confided in her. Lady Sellingworth had never done this. But now she wished that she could bring herself to do it. Caroline must certainly know her horribly well. Perhaps she could be helped by Caroline.

She needed help, for she was abominably devoid of moral courage.

She did not quite know why at this particular moment she was overwhelmed by a feeling of degradation; she only knew that she was overwhelmed. She felt ashamed of being in Paris. She even compared herself with the horrible old woman in the wig, who, perhaps, had bought the brown man as she might have bought a big Newfoundland dog.

Fifty! Fifty! Fifty! It knelled in her ears. Caroline saw her as a woman of fifty. Perhaps everyone really saw her so. And yet--why had the man given her that strange look in Bond Street? Why had he wished her to come to Paris? She tried, with a really unusual sincerity, to find some other reason than the reason which had delighted her vanity. But she failed. Sincerely she failed.

And yet--was it possible?

She thought of giving up, of becoming like Caroline. It would be a great rest. But how empty her life would be. Caroline’s life was a habit. But such a life for her would be an absolute novelty. No doubt Caroline’s reward had come to her in middle-age. Middle-age was bringing something to her, Adela Sellingworth, which was certainly not a reward. One got what one earned. That was certain. And she had earned wages which she dreaded having paid to her.

She had a good brain, and she realized that if she had the moral courage she might--it was possible--be rewarded by a peace of mind such as she had never yet known. She was able as it were to catch a glimpse of a future in which she might be at ease with herself. It even enticed her. But something whispered to her, “It would be stagnation--death in life.” And then she was afraid of it.

She spent the evening in miserable depression, not knowing what she could do. She distrusted and almost hated herself. And she could not decide whether or not on the morrow to give Caroline some insight into her state of mind.

On the following day she was still miserable, even tormented, and quite undecided as to what she was going to do.

She spent the morning at her dressmaker’s, and walked, with her maid, in the Rue de la Paix. There she met a Frenchwoman whom she knew well, Madame de Gretigny, who begged her to come to lunch at her house in the Faubourg St. Honore. She accepted. What else could she do? After lunch she drove with her friend in the Bois. Then they dropped in to tea with some French mutual friends.

The usual Paris was gently beginning to take possession of her. What was the good of it all? What had she really expected of this visit? She had started from London with a crazy sense of adventure. And here she was plunged in the life of convention! Oh, for the freedom of a man! Or the stable content of a Caroline Briggs!

At moments she felt enraged.

She saw the crowds passing in the streets, women tripping along consciously, men--flaneurs--strolling with their well-known look of watchful idleness, and she felt herself to be one of life’s prisoners. And she knew she would never again take hands with the Paris she had once known so well. Why was that? Because of something in herself, something irrevocable which had fixed itself in her with the years. She was changing, had changed, not merely in body, but in something else. She felt that her audacity was sinking under the influence of her diffidence. Suddenly it occurred to her that perhaps this sudden visit to Paris on the track of an adventure was the last strong effort of her audacity. How would it end? In a meek and ridiculous return to London after a lunch with Caroline Briggs, a dinner with Caroline, a visit to the Opera Comique with Caroline! That really seemed the probable conclusion of the whole business. And yet--and yet she still had a sort of queer under feeling that she was drawing near to a climax in her life, and that, when she did return to London, she would return a definitely changed woman.

At half-past eight that night she walked into Caroline’s wonderful house in the Champs-Elysees.

During dinner the two women talked as any two women of their types might have talked, quite noncommittally, although, in a surface way, quite intimately. Miss Briggs was a creature full of tact, and was the last person in the world to try to force a confidence from anyone. She was also not given at any time to pouring out confidences of her own.

After dinner they sat in a little room which Miss Briggs had had conveyed from Persia to Paris. Everything in it was Persian. When the door by which it was entered had been shut there was absolutely nothing to suggest Europe to those within. A faint Eastern perfume pervaded this strange little room, which suggested a deep retirement, an almost cloistered seclusion. A grille in one of the walls drew the imagination towards the harem. It seemed that there must be hidden women over there beyond it. Instinctively one listened for the tinkle of childish laughter, for the distant plash of a fountain, for the shuffle of slippers on marble.

Lady Sellingworth admired this room, and envied her friend for possessing it. But that night it brought to her a thought which she could not help expressing.

“Aren’t you terribly lonely in this house, Caroline?” she said. “It is so large and so wonderful that I should think it must make solitude almost a bodily shape to you. And this room seems to be in the very heart of the house. Do you ever sit here without a friend or guest?”

“Now and then, but not often at night,” said Miss Briggs, with serene self-possession.

“You are an extraordinary woman!” said Lady Sellingworth.

“Extraordinary! Why?”

“Because you always seem so satisfied to live quite alone. I hate solitude. I’m afraid of it.”

Suddenly she felt that she must be partially frank with her hostess.

“Is self-respect a real companion for a woman?” she said. “Can one sit with it and be contented? Does it repay a woman for all the sacrifices she has offered up to it? Is it worth the sacrifices? That’s what I want to know.”

“I dare say that depends on the woman’s mental make up,” replied Miss Briggs. “One woman, perhaps, might find that it was, another that it was not.”

“Yes, we are all so different, so dreadfully different, one from another.”

“It would be very much duller if we weren’t.”

“Even as it is life can be very dull.”

“I should certainly not call your life dull,” said Miss Briggs.

“Anyhow, it’s dreadful!” said Lady Sellingworth, with sudden abandonment.

“Why is it dreadful?”

“Caroline, I was fifty a few days ago.”

As Lady Sellingworth said this she observed her friend closely to see if she looked surprised. Miss Briggs did not look surprised. And she only said:

“Were you? Well, I shall be fifty-eight in a couple of months.”

“You don’t look it.”

“Perhaps that’s because I haven’t looked young for the last thirty years.”

“I hate being fifty. The difficulty with me is that my--my nature and my temperament don’t match with my age. And that worries me. What is one to do?”

“Do you want me to advise you about something?”

“I think I do. But it’s so difficult to explain. Perhaps there is a time to give up. Perhaps I have reached it. But if I do give up, what am I to do? How am I to live? I might marry again.”

“Why not?”

“It would have to be an elderly man, wouldn’t it?”

“I hope so.”

“I--I shouldn’t care to marry an elderly man. I don’t want to.”

“Then don’t do it.”

“You think if I were to marry a comparatively young man--”

She paused, looking almost pleadingly at the uncompromising Miss Briggs.

“I’m convinced of this, that no really normal young man could ever be contented long if he married a middle-aged woman. And what intelligent woman is happy with an abnormal man?”

“Caroline, you are so dreadfully frank!”

“I say just what I think.”

“But you think so drastically. And you are so free from sentiment.”

“What is called sentiment is very often nothing but what is described in the Bible as the lust of the eye.”

This shaft, perhaps not intended to be a shaft, went home. Lady Sellingworth reddened and looked down.

“I dare say it is,” she murmured. “But--no doubt some of us are more subject to temptation than others.”

“I’m sure that is so.”

“It’s very difficult to give up deliberately nearly all that has made life interesting and attractive to you ever since you can remember. Caroline, would you advise me to--to abdicate? You know what I mean.”

Miss Briggs’s rather plain, but very intelligent, face softened.

“Adela, my dear,” she said, “I understand a great deal more than you have cared to hint at to me.”

“I know you do.”

“I think that unless you change your way of life in time you are heading straight for tragedy. We both know a lot of women who try to defy the natural law. Many of them are rather beautiful women. But do you think they are happy women? I don’t. I know they aren’t. Youth laughs at them. I don’t know what you feel about it, but I think I would rather be pelted with stones than be jeered at by youth in my middle age. Respect may sound a very dull word, but I think there’s something very warm in it when it surrounds you as you get old. In youth we want love, of course, all of us. But in middle age we want respect too. And nothing else takes its place. There’s a dignity of the soul, and women like us--I’m older than you, but still we are neither of us very young any longer--only throw it away at a terrible price. When I want to see tragedy I look at the women who try to hang on to what refuses to stay with them. And I soon have to shut my eyes. It’s too painful. It’s like looking at bones decked out with jewels.”

Lady Sellingworth sat very still. There was a long silence between the two friends. When they spoke again they spoke of other things.

That night Lady Sellingworth told her maid to pack up, as she was returning to London by the morning express on the following day.

At the Gare du Nord there was the usual bustle. But there was not a great crowd of travellers for England, and Lady Sellingworth without difficulty secured a carriage to herself. Her maid stood waiting with the jewel-case while she went to the bookstall to buy something to read on the journey. She felt dull, almost miserable, but absolutely determined. She knew that Caroline was right. She thought she meant to take her advice. At any rate, she would not try to pursue the adventure which had lured her to Paris. How she would be able to live when she got home she did not know. But she would go home. It had been absurd, undignified of her to come to Paris. She would try to forget all about it.

She bought a book and some papers; then she walked to the train.

“Are you going to get in, my lady?” said the maid.

“Yes. You can put in the jewel-case.”

The maid did so, and Lady Sellingworth got into the carriage and sat next to the window on the platform side, facing the engine, with the jewel-case beside her on the next seat. The corridor was between her and the platform. On the right, beyond the carriage door, the line was blocked by another train at rest in the station.

She sat still, not reading, but thinking. The maid went away to her second-class carriage.

Lady Sellingworth continued to feel very dull. Now that she was abandoning this adventure, or promise of adventure, she knew how much it had meant to her. It had lifted her out of the anger and depression in which she had been plunged by the Rupert Louth episode. It had appealed to her wildness, had given her new hope, something to look forward to, something that was food for her imagination. She had lived in an imagined future that was romantic, delicious and turbulent. Now she knew exactly how much she had counted on this visit to Paris as the door through which she would pass into a new and extraordinary romance. She had felt certain that something wonderful, something unconventional, bizarre, perhaps almost maddening, was going to happen to her in Paris.

And now--At this moment she became aware of some influence which drew her attention to the platform on her left. She had not seen anyone; she had simply felt someone. She turned her head and looked through the window of the corridor.

The brown man was on the platform alone, standing still and looking intently towards her carriage. Two or three people passed him. He did not move. She felt sure that he was waiting for her to get out, that this time he meant to speak to her.

In a moment all her good resolutions, all the worldly wise advice of Miss Briggs, all her dullness and despair were forgotten. The wildness that would not die surged up in her. Her vanity glowed. She had been wrong, utterly wrong. Miss Briggs had been wrong. Despite the difference between their ages, this man, young, strong, amazingly handsome, must have fallen in love with her at first sight. He must have--somehow--been watching her in Paris. He must have ascertained that she was leaving Paris that morning, have followed her to the station determined at all costs to have a word with her.

Should she let him have that word?

Just for an instant she hesitated. Then, almost passionately, she gave way to a turbulent impulse. She felt reckless. At that moment she was almost ready to let the train go without her. But there were still a few, a very few, minutes before the time for its departure. She got up, left the carriage, and stood in the corridor looking out of the window. Immediately the man slightly raised his hat, sent her a long and imploring look, and then moved slowly away down the platform in the direction of the entrance to it. She gazed after him. He paused, again raised his hat, and made a very slight, scarcely noticeable gesture with his hand. Then he remained where he was.

Saying to herself that she would certainly not obey his obvious wish and follow him, but would simply get out of the train and take a few breaths of air on the platform--as any woman might to while away the time--Lady Sellingworth made her way to the end of the corridor and descended to the platform. The brown man was still there, a little way off. Several people were hurrying to take their places in the train. Porters were carrying hand luggage, or wheeling trucks of heavy luggage to the railway vans. No one seemed to have any time to take notice of her or of the man. She did not look at him, but began slowly to stroll up and down, keeping near to her carriage. She had given him his chance. Now it was for him to take firm hold on it. She fully expected that he would come up and speak to her. She thrilled with excitement at the prospect. What would he say? How would he act? Would he explain why he had done nothing in Paris? Would he beg her to stay on in Paris? Would he ask to be allowed to visit her in London? Would he--But he did not come up to her.

After taking several short turns, keeping her eyes resolutely away from the place where he was standing, Lady Sellingworth could not resist the impulse to look towards him to see what he was doing. She lifted her eyes.

He was gone.

“_En voiture!_” cried a hoarse voice.

She stood still.

“_En voiture! En voiture!_”

Mechanically she moved. She went to her carriage, put her hand on the rail, mounted the steps, passing into the corridor, and reached her compartment just as the train began to move.

What had happened to him? What was the meaning of it all? Was he travelling to England too? Had he got into the train?

She sat down wondering, almost confused.

Mechanically she let her right hand drop on to the seat beside her. She was so accustomed when travelling to have her jewel-case beside her that her hand must have missed it though her thoughts were far from it. For immediately after dropping her hand she looked down.

The jewel-case was gone.

Instantly her feeling of confusion was swept away; instantly she understood.

She had been caught in a trap by a clever member of the swell mob operating with a confederate. While she had been on the platform, to which she had been deliberately enticed, the confederate had entered the compartment from the line, through the doorway on the right-hand side of her carriage, and had carried off the jewel-case.

The revelation of the truth almost stunned something in her. Yet she was able to think quite clearly. She did nothing. She just sat still and understood, and went on understanding, while the train quickened its pace on its way towards the sea.

By the time it slowed down, and the dull houses of Calais appeared, she had made up her mind about the future. Her vanity had received at last a mortal blow. The climax had come. It was not what she had expected, but her imp--less satirical now than desperately tragic and powerfully persuasive, told her that it was what she deserved. And she bowed her head to his verdict, not with tears, but with a cold and stormy sense of finality.

When the train stopped at the harbour station her maid appeared in the corridor.

“Shall I take the jewel-case, my lady?”

Lady Sellingworth stood up. She had not decided what to say to her maid. She was taken by surprise. As she stood, her tall figure concealed the seat on which the jewel-case had been lying. For an instant she looked at the maid in silence. Perhaps the expression of her face as strange, for after a pause the maid said anxiously:

“Whatever is it, my lady?”

“Never mind about the jewel-case!” said Lady Sellingworth.

“But--”

“It’s gone!”

“Gone, my lady!” said the maid, looking aghast. “Gone where?”

“It was taken at the station in Paris.”

“Taken, my lady! But it was in the carriage by the side of your ladyship! I never left it. I had it in my own hands till your ladyship--”

“I know--I know! Don’t say anything more about it. It’s gone, and we shall never see it again.”

The maid stared, horrified, and scenting a mystery.

“Get that porter! Make haste!”

They got down from the train. Lady Sellingworth turned to make her way to the ship.

“But, my lady, surely we ought to speak to the police? All your beautiful jewels--”

“The police could do nothing. It is too late! I should only have endless trouble, and no good would come of it.”

“But your ladyship was in the carriage with them!”

“Yes, I know! Now don’t say any more about the matter!”

There was something in her tone which struck the maid to silence. She said not another word till they were on the ship.

Then Lady Sellingworth went to the cabin which she had telegraphed for.

“I am going to lie down,” she said. “You can leave me.”

“Yes, my lady.”

After arranging things in the cabin the maid was about to go when Lady Sellingworth said:

“You have been with me a long time, Henderson. You have been very useful to me. And I think I have been a good mistress to you.”

“Oh, yes, my lady, indeed you have. I would do anything for your ladyship.”

“Would you? Then try to hold your tongue about this unfortunate occurrence. Talking can do no good. I shall not inform the police. The jewels are gone, and I shan’t get them back. I have a great dislike of fuss and gossip, and only wish to be left in peace. If you talk, all this is sure to get into the papers. I should hate that.”

“Yes, my lady. But surely the police--”

“It is my business, and no one else’s, to decide what is best in this matter. So hold your tongue, if you can. You will not repent it if you do.”

“Yes, my lady. Certainly, my lady.”

The maid was obviously horrified and puzzled. But she left her mistress without another word.

They arrived in Berkeley Square in the evening.

That evening which Lady Sellingworth spent in solitude was the turning point in her life. During it and the succeeding night she went down to the bedrock of realization. She allowed her brains full liberty. Or they took full liberty as their right. The woman of the grey matter had it out with the woman of the blood. She stared her wildness in the face and saw it just as it was, and resolved once for all to dominate it for the rest of her days. She was not such a fool as to think that she could ever destroy it. No doubt it would always be there to trouble her, perhaps often to torture her. But rule her, as it had ruled her in the past, it never should again. Her resolve about that was hard, of a rock-like quality.

She had done with a whole side of life, and it was the side for which she had lived ever since she was a girl of sixteen. The renunciation was tremendous, devastating almost. She thought of a landslide carrying away villages, whole populations. How true had been the instinct which had told her that she was drawing near to a climax in her life! Had ever a woman before her been brought in a flash to such a cruel insight? It was as if a tideless sea, by some horrible miracle, retreated, leaving naked rocks which till that moment had never been seen by mortal eyes, hideous and grotesque rocks covered with slime and ooze.

And she stood alone, staring at them.

She remembered the dinner in her house at which there had been the discussion about happiness, and the desire of the old Anglo-Indian for complete peace of mind. Could a woman gain that mysterious benefit by giving up? Could such a thing ever be hers? She did not believe it. But she knew all the torture of striving. In her renunciation she would at least be able to rest, to rest in being frankly and openly what she was. And she knew she was tired. She was very tired. Perhaps some of the “old guard” were made of cast iron. But she was not.

The “old guard”! With the thought of that body of wonderful women came a flood of memories. She remembered “The Hags’ Hop.” She saw Rocheouart standing before her; Rupert Louth; other young men, all lively, handsome, ardent, bursting with life and the wish to enjoy.

Was there ever a time when the human being could utterly forego the wish to enjoy? To her there seemed to be hidden in desire seeds of eternity. The struggle for her, then, was not yet over. Perhaps it would only cease in the grave. And after? Sellingworth had often told her that there was no hereafter. And at the time she had believed him. But she was not sure now. For even the persistence of desire seemed to point to something beyond. But she would not bother about that. She was held fast enough in the present.

What would the “old guard” say of her, think of her, in a very short time? What a defection hers would be! For she had resolved to take a plunge into middle age. No gliding into it for her! She would let everything go which was ready to go naturally. Her Greek had already lost his job, although as yet he did not know it.

Caroline Briggs would believe that the change which was at hand, the change which would be discussed, perhaps laughed at, praised by some, condemned by others, had been brought about by the conversation in the Persian Room. She would never know the truth. No one of Lady Sellingworth’s set would ever know it. For no one, except a thief and his underlings, knew of the last folly of poor old Adela Sellingworth!

Poor old Adela Sellingworth!

As Lady Sellingworth called herself bitterly by that name tears at last came into her luminous eyes. Secretly she wept over herself, although the tears did not fall down upon her cheeks. She had done many foolish things, many wild things, many almost crazy things in her life. But that day she had surely been punished for them all. When she thought of the thieves’ plot against her, of the working out of it, she saw herself lying, like a naked thing, in the dust. Such men! How had they known her character? Somehow they must have got to know it, and devised their plan to appeal to it. They had woven just the right net to catch her in its folds. She seemed to hear their hideous discussions about her. The long look in Bond Street had been the first move in the horrible game. And she in her folly had connected the game with romance, with something like love even.

Love! A life such as hers had been was the prostitution of love, and now she deserved to be loveless for the rest of her life. Vanity and sensuality had been her substitutes for love. She had dealt in travesty and had pretended, even to herself, that she was following reality. It was amazing how she had managed to deceive herself.

She would never do that again.

Very late that night, alone in her bedroom, she sat before a mirror and looked into it, saying good-bye to the self which she had cherished and fostered so long, had lived for recklessly sometimes, ruthlessly almost always. She saw a worn, but still very handsome woman. But she told herself that the woman was hideous. For really she was looking at the woman underneath, the woman who was going to emerge very soon into the daylight with a frankly lined face crowned with grey or perhaps even white hair, at the woman who was the truth, at _herself_. This woman before her was only a counterfeit, a marvellously clever artificiality.

There were two electric lights at the sides of the mirror. She turned them both on. She wanted crude light just then. Cruelty she was taking to her bosom. She was grasping her nettle with both hands.

Yes, the artificiality was marvellously clever! The Greek had been worth his money. He had created a sort of human orchid whose petals showed few, wonderfully few, signs of withering.

But she had wanted to be not the orchid but really the rose. And so she was down in the dust.

Poor old Adela Sellingworth, who in a very short time--how long exactly would the Greek’s work take to crumble--would look even older than fifty!

She turned out the lights presently and got into bed. When she had made the big bedroom dark, and had stretched her long body out between the sheets of Irish linen, she felt terrifically tired, tired in body and spirit, but somehow not in mind. Her mind was almost horribly alive and full of agility. It brought visions before her; it brought voices into her ears.

She saw men of the underworld sitting together in shadows and whispering about her, using coarse words, undressing her character, commenting upon it without mercy, planning how they would make use of it to their advantage. She heard them laughing about her and about all the women like her.

And presently she saw an old woman with a white face, a withered throat and vague eyes, an old woman in a black wig, smiling as she decked herself out in the Sellingworth jewels.