Chapter XII: Book IV: XXV (3)

He looked about him with the same estranged stare with which his eyes had rested on her face. Something clear and impenetrable as a pane of crystal seemed to cut him off from her, and from all that surrounded her. He had been to the country from which travellers return with another soul.

“What I want...?” Ah, he knew that well enough! What he wanted, at the moment, was just some opiate to dull the dogged ache of body and soul—to close his ears against that laugh of Judith’s, and all his senses to her nearness. He was caught body and soul—that was it; and real loving was not the delicate distraction, the food for dreams, he had imagined it when he thought himself in love with Rose Sellars; it was this perpetual obsession, this clinging nearness, this breaking on the rack of every bone, and tearing apart of every fibre. And his apprenticeship to it was just beginning....

Well, there was one thing certain; it was that he must get away, as soon as he could, from the friendly room and Rose’s forgiving presence. He tried to blunder into some sort of explanation. “I don’t suppose I’ve any business to be here,” he began abruptly.

Mrs. Sellars was silent; but it was not one of her speaking silences. It was like a great emptiness slowly widening between them. For a moment he thought she meant to force on him the task of bridging it over; then he saw that she was struggling with a pain as benumbing as his own. She could not think of anything to say any more than he could, and her helplessness moved him, and brought her nearer. “She wants to end it decently, as I do,” he thought; but his pity for her did not help him to find words.

At length he got up and held out his hand. “You’re the best friend I’ve ever had—and the dearest. But I’m going off on a big job somewhere; I must. At the other end of the world. For a time—”

“Yes,” she assented, very low. She did not take the hand he held out—perhaps did not even see it. When two people part who have loved each other it is as if what happens between them befell in a great emptiness—as if the tearing asunder of the flesh must turn at last into a disembodied anguish.

“You’ve forgotten your umbrella,” she said, as he reached the door. He gave a little laugh as he came back to get it.

XXXI

The next day Boyne lunched at the _Nouveau Luxe_ alone with Mrs. Wheater and Judith. He had wondered if it would occur to Joyce that it might be preferable to lunch upstairs, in her own rooms; but it had not; and his mind was too dulled with pain for him to care much for his surroundings. No crowd could make him feel farther away from Judith than the unseeing look in her own eyes.

Mrs. Wheater was dressed with a Quaker-like austerity which made her look younger and handsomer than when he had last seen her, in the rakish apparel of the Lido. She had acquired another new voice, as she did with each new phase; this time it was subdued and somewhat melancholy, but less studied than the fluty tones she had affected in Venice. Altogether, Boyne had to admit that she had improved—that Mr. Dobree’s influence had achieved what others had failed to do. After lunch they went upstairs, and Joyce proposed to Judith that, as the rain had stopped, she should take Chipstone and Susan to the Bois de Boulogne. She herself wanted to have a quiet talk with dear Martin—Judith could send the motor back to pick her up at four; no, at half-past three. She had promised to go to a wonderful loan exhibition of Incunabula with Mr. Dobree.... Judith nodded and disappeared, with a faint smile at Boyne.

Mr. Dobree had opened her eyes to so many marvels, Joyce continued when they were alone. Incunabula, for instance—would Boyne believe that she had never before heard of their existence? Mr. Dobree had thought she must be joking when she asked him what they were. But Martin knew how much chance she had had of cultivating herself in Cliffe’s society.... Yes, and she was beginning to collect books—first editions—and to form a real library. Didn’t he think it would be a splendid thing for the children—especially for Terry? She blushed to think that while the family travelled over Europe in steam-yachts and Blue Trains and Rolls-Royces, poor Terry had had to feed on the rubbish Scopy could pick up for him in hotel libraries, or the _cabinets de lecture_ of frowsy watering-places. Mr. Dobree had been horrified when he found that Cliffe, with all his millions, had never owned a library! But then he didn’t know Cliffe.

Joyce went on to unfold her plans for the future. She spoke, as usual, as if they were fixed and immutable in every detail. She had decided to buy a place in the country—near either Paris or Dinard, she wasn’t sure which. Probably Dinard on account of Terry’s health. The climate was mild; and it was said that there were educational advantages. If the sea was too strong for him she could find a house somewhere inland. But they must be near a town on account of the children’s education, and yet not in it because of the demoralising influences, and the lack of good air. In a few days she was going down to look about her at Dinard....

Boyne knew, she supposed, that she had begun divorce proceedings? Of course she ought to have done it long ago—but in that _milieu_ one’s moral sense got absolutely blunted. Evidence—? Heavens! She already had more than enough to make her own terms. Horrors and horrors.... There was no doubt, Mr. Dobree said, that the courts would give her the custody of all the children. And from now on they would be the sole object of her life. Didn’t Boyne agree that, at her age, there couldn’t be a more perfect conclusion? Oh, yes, she knew—she looked younger than she really was ... but there were gray streaks in her hair already; hadn’t he noticed? And she wasn’t going to dye it; not she! She was going to let herself turn frankly into an _old woman_. She didn’t mind the idea a bit. Middle-age was so full of duties and interests of its own; she had a perfect horror of the women who are always dyeing and drugging themselves, in the hopeless attempt to keep young—like that pitiable Syb Lullmer, for instance. She had learned, thank heaven, that there were other things in life. And her first object, of course, was to get the children away from hotels and hotel contacts—from all the _Nouveaux Luxes_ and the “Palaces.” She was counting the minutes till she could create a real home for them, and make them so happy that they would never want to leave it.... She knew Boyne would approve.... The monologue ended by her expressing her gratitude for all he had done for the children, and her delight at being reunited to Judith and Chip—Chip, oh, he was a wonder, so fat and tall, and walking and talking like a boy of four. And Judith told her it was all thanks to Boyne....

Mrs. Wheater seemed genuinely sorry to think that Bun and Beechy would probably have to return to their father. But perhaps, she added, if the new Princess Buondelmonte was so full of good intentions, and so determined to have her own way, the two children might get a fairly decent bringing-up. Buondelmonte wasn’t as young as he had been, and might be glad to settle down, if his wife made him comfortable, and let him have enough money to gamble at his club. And as for Zinnie—Joyce shrugged, and doubted if either her mother or Cliffe would really take Zinnie on, when it came to the point. She was rather a handful, Zinnie was; no one but Judy could control her. Still, grieved as Joyce would be to give up the “steps,” poor little souls, she was too much used to human ingratitude not to foresee that they might be taken from her at any moment. But her own children—no! Never again. Of that Boyne might be assured. She had learned her lesson, her eyes had been opened to her own folly and imprudence; and Mr. Dobree had absolutely promised her—oh, by the way, wasn’t Martin going to stay and see Mr. Dobree, who would be turning up at any minute now to take her to see the Incunabula? She thought he and Martin had met at Cortina, hadn’t they? Yes, she remembered; Mr. Dobree had been so struck by Martin’s devotion to the children. She hoped so much they might meet again and make friends.... Boyne thanked her, and thought perhaps another time ... but he was leaving Paris, probably; he couldn’t wait then.... He got himself out of the room in a confusion of excuses....

All day he wandered through the streets, inconsolably. His will-power seemed paralysed. He was determined to get away from Paris at once, to go to New York first, in quest of a job, and then to whatever end of the world the job should call him. There was no object in his lingering where he was for another hour. He and Rose Sellars had said their last word to each other—and to Judith herself what more had he to say? Yet he could not submit his mind to the idea that his happy unreal life of the last weeks was over; that he would never again enter the _pension_ at Cortina, and see the little Wheaters flocking about him in a tumult of welcome, begging for a romp, a game, a story, clamouring to have their quarrels arbitrated, demanding to be taken on a picnic—with Judith serene above the tumult, or laughing and twittering with the rest.... When he grew too tired to walk farther he turned in at a post-office, and wrote a cable which he had been revolving for some hours. It was addressed to the New York contractors who had written to ask if he could trace the young engineer who had been his assistant. Luckily he had not been able to, and he cabled: “Should like for myself the job you wrote about. Can I have it? Can start at once. Cable bankers.”

This message despatched, he turned to the telephone booth, rang up the _Nouveau Luxe_, and asked to speak to Miss Wheater. Interminable minutes passed after he had put in his call; Mrs. Wheater’s maid was found first, who didn’t know where Judith was, or how to find her; then Susan, who said Judith had come back, and gone out again, and that all she knew was that the ladies were going to dine out that evening with Mr. Dobree, and go to the theatre. Then, just as Boyne was turning away discouraged, Judith’s own voice: “Hullo, Martin! Where are you? When can I see you?”

“Now, if you can come. I’m off tonight—to London.” He suddenly found he had decided that without knowing it.

She exclaimed in astonishment, and asked where she was to meet him; and he acquiesced in her suggestion that it should be at a tea-room near her hotel, as it was so late that she would soon have to hurry back for dinner. He jumped into a taxi, secured a table in a remote corner of the tea-room, and met her on the threshold a moment later. It was already long after six, and the rooms were emptying; in a few minutes they would have the place to themselves.

Judith, a little flushed with the haste of her arrival, looked gracefully grown up in her dark coat edged with fur, a pretty antelope bag in her gloved hand. The bareheaded girl of the Dolomites, in sports’ frock and russet shoes, had been replaced by a demure young woman who seemed to Boyne almost a stranger.

“Martin! You’re not really going away tonight?” she began at once, not noticing his request that she should choose between tea-cakes and _éclairs_.

He said he was, for a few days at any rate; the mere sound of her voice, the look in her eyes, had nearly dissolved his plans again, and his own voice was unsteady.

The fact that it was only for a few days seemed to reassure Judith. He’d be back by the end of the week, she hoped, wouldn’t he? Yes—oh, yes, he said—very probably.

“Because, you know, the children’ll be here by that time,” she announced; and, turning her attention to the trays presented: “Oh, both, I think—yes, I’ll take both.”

“The children?”

“Yes; mother’s just settled it. Mr. Dobree wrote the wire for her. If Nanny gets it in time they’re to start to-morrow. Mr. Dobree thinks we may be able to keep the steps too—he’s going to write himself to Buondelmonte. And he doesn’t believe the Wrenches will ever bother us about Zinnie ... at least not at present. He’s found out a lot of things about Lord Wrench, and he thinks Zinnia’ll have her hands full with him, without tackling Zinnie too.”

She spoke serenely, almost lightly, as if all her anxieties had been dispelled. Could it be that the mere change of scene, the few hours spent with her mother, had so completely reassured her? She, who had always measured Joyce with such precocious insight, was it possible that she was deluded by her now? Or had she too succumbed to Mr. Dobree’s mysterious influence? Boyne looked at her careless face and wondered.

“But this Dobree—you didn’t fancy him much at Cortina? What makes you believe in him now?”

She seemed a little puzzled, and wrinkled her brows in the effort to find a reason. “I don’t know. He’s funny looking, of course; and rather pompous. And I do like you heaps better, Martin. But he’s been most awfully good about the children, and he can make mother do whatever he tells her. And she says he’s a great lawyer, and his clients almost always win their cases. Oh, Martin, wouldn’t it be heavenly if he could really keep us together, steps and all? He’s sworn to me that he will.” She turned her radiant eyes on Boyne. “Anyhow, the children will be here the day after to-morrow, and that will be splendid, won’t it? You must get back from London as soon as ever you can, and take us all off somewhere for the day, just as if we were still at Cortina.”

Yes, of course he would, Boyne said; on Scopy’s book he would. She lit up at that, asking where they’d better go, and finally settling that, if the rain ever held up, a day at Versailles would be jollier than anything.... But it must be soon, she reminded him; because in a few days Mrs. Wheater was going to carry them all off to Dinard.

Yes, she pursued, she really did feel that Mr. Dobree, just in a few weeks, had gained more influence over her mother than any one else ever had. Judith had had a long talk with him that morning, and he had told her frankly that he was doing it all out of interest in the children, and because he wanted to help her—wasn’t that dear of him? Anyhow, they were all going to stand together, grown ups and children, and put up a last big fight. (“On Scopy’s book,” Boyne interpolated with a strained smile.) And they were to have a big house in the country, with lots of dogs and horses, she continued. And the children were never to go to hotels any more. And Terry was to have a really first-rate tutor, and be sent to school in Switzerland as soon as he was strong enough; in another year, perhaps.

Boyne sat watching her with insatiable eyes. She looked so efficient, so experienced—yet what could be surer proof of her childishness than this suddenly revived faith in the future? He saw that whoever would promise to keep the children together would gain a momentary hold over her—as he once had, alas! And he saw also that the mere change of scene, the excitement of the flight from Cortina, the encouragement which her mother’s new attitude gave her, were so many balloons lifting her up into the blue.... “It will be Versailles, don’t you think so?” she began again. “Or, if it rains deluges, what about the circus, and a big tea afterward, somewhere where Chip and Nanny could come too?” She looked at him with her hesitating smile. “I thought, perhaps, if you didn’t mind—but, no, darling,” she broke off decisively, “we won’t ask Mr. Dobree!”

“Lord—I should hope not; not if I’m giving the party.” He found the voice and laugh she expected, gave her back her banter, discussed and fixed with her the day and hour of the party. And all the while there echoed in his ears, more insistently than anything she was saying, a line or two from the chorus of Lemures, in “Faust,” which Rose had read aloud one evening at Cortina.

_Who made the room so mean and bare—
Where are the chairs, the tables where?
It was lent for a moment only—_

A moment only: not a bad title for the history of his last few months! A moment only; and he had always known it. “An episode,” he thought, “it’s been only an episode. One of those things that come up out of the sea, on a full-moon night, playing the harp.... Yes; but sometimes the episodes last, and the things one thought eternal wither like grass—and only the gods know which it will be ... if _they_ do....

“_L’addition, mademoiselle?_ Good Lord, child; four _éclairs_? And a Dobree dinner in the offing! Ah, thrice-happy infancy, as the poet said.... Yes, here’s your umbrella. Take my arm, and we’ll nip round on foot to the back door of the _Luxe_. You’ve eaten so much that I haven’t got enough left to pay for a taxi....”

From the threshold of the hotel she called to him, rosy under her shining umbrella: “Thursday morning, then, you’ll fetch us all at ten?” And he called back: “On Scopy’s book, I will!” as the rain engulfed him.

On the day fixed for the children’s picnic Boyne lay half asleep on the deck of a South American liner. It was better so—a lot better. The morning after he had parted from Judith at the door of the _Nouveau Luxe_ the summons had come: “Job yours please sail immediately for Rio particulars on arrival”; and he had just had time to pitch his things into his portmanteaux, catch the first train for London, and scramble on board his boat at Liverpool.

A lot better so.... The busy man’s way of liquidating hopeless situations. It reminded him of the old times when, at the receipt of such a summons, cares and complications fell from him like dust from a shaken garment. It would not be so now; his elasticity was gone. Yet already, after four days at sea, he was beginning to feel a vague solace in the empty present, and in the future packed with duties. No hesitating, speculating, wavering to and fro—he was to be caught as soon as he landed, and thrust into the stiff harness of his work. And meanwhile, more and more miles of sea were slipping in between him and the last months, making them already seem remote and vapoury compared with the firm outline of the future.

The day was mild, with a last touch of summer on the lazy waves over which they were gliding.... He closed his eyes and slept....

At Versailles too it was mild; there were yellow leaves still on the beeches of the long walks; they formed golden tunnels, with hazy blueish vistas where the park melted into the blur of the forest. But the gardens were almost deserted; it was too late in the season for the children chasing their hoops and balls down the alleys, the groups of nurses knitting and gossiping on wooden chairs under the great stone Dianas and Apollos.

Funny—he and the little Wheaters seemed to have the lordly pleasure-grounds to themselves. The clipped walls of beech and hornbean echoed with their shouts and laughter. What a handful the little Wheaters were getting to be! Terry, now, could run and jump with the rest; and as for Chip, rounder than ever in a white fur coat and tasselled cap, his waddle was turning into a scamper....

In the sun, under a high protecting hedge, Miss Scope and Nanny sat and beamed upon their children; and Susan flew down the vistas after Chip....

Boyne and Judith were alone. They had wandered away into one of the _bosquets_: solitary even in summer, with vacant-faced divinities niched in green, broken arcades, toy temples deserted of their gods. On this November day, when mist was everywhere, mist trailing through the half-bare trees, lying in a faint bloom on the lichened statues, oozing up from the layers of leaves underfoot, the place seemed the ghostly setting of dead days. Boyne looked down at Judith, and even her face was ghostly.... “Come,” he said with a shiver, “let’s get back into the sun—.” Outside of the _bosquet_, down the alley, the children came storming toward them, shouting, laughing and wrangling. Boyne, laughing too, caught up the furry Chip, and swung him high in air. Bun, to attract his attention, turned a new somersault at his feet, and Zinnie and Beechy squealed: “Martin, now’s the time for presents!” For, since the Princess Buondelmonte had been so shocked by their cupidity, it had become a joke with the children to be always petitioning for presents.

“Little devils—as if I could ever leave them!” Boyne thought.

“Tea, sir?” said the steward. “Ham sandwiches?”

XXXII

Boyne was coming back from Brazil. His steamer was approaching Bordeaux, moving up the estuary of the Gironde under a September sky as mild as the one which had roofed his sleep when, nearly three years earlier, he had dreamt he was at Versailles with the little Wheaters.

Three years of work and accomplishment lay behind him. And the job was not over; that was the best of it. A touch of fever had disabled him, and he was to take a few weeks’ holiday in Europe, and then return to his task. His first idea had been to put in this interval of convalescence in America; to take the opportunity to look up his people, and see a few old friends in New York. But he was sure to find Rose Sellars in New York, or near it; he could hardly go there without being obliged to see her. And the time for that had not yet come—if it ever would. He looked at his grizzled head, his sallow features with brown fever-blotches under the skin, and put away the idea with a grimace. The tropics seemed fairly to have burnt him out....

Rose Sellars had been kind; she had been perfect, as he had foreseen she would be. He knew that, after a winter on the Nile with Aunt Julia, she had returned to her own house in New York; for, once re-established there, she had begun to write to him again. From her letters—which were free from all recriminations, all returning to the past—he learned that she had taken up her old life again: the reading, the social round, the small preoccupations. But he saw her going through the old routine with transparent hands and empty eyes, as he could picture the ghosts of good women doing in the world of shadows.

His own case was more fortunate. His eyes were full of visions of work to be, his hands of the strength of work done. Yet at times he too felt tenuous and disembodied. Since the fever, particularly—it was always disastrous to him to have to interrupt his work. And this flat soft shore that gave him welcome—so safe, so familiar—how it frightened him! He didn’t want to come in contact with life again, and life always wooed him when he was not at work.

It was odd, how little, of late, he had thought of the Wheaters. At first the memory of them had been a torture, an obsession. But luckily he had not given his address to Judith, and so she had not been able to write; and Mrs. Sellars had never once alluded to the children. His work in Brazil lay up country, far from towns and post-offices; but bundles of American newspapers straggled in at uncertain intervals, and from one he had learned that the Wheater divorce had been pronounced in Mrs. Wheater’s favour, from another, about a year later, that Cliffe had married Mrs. Lullmer. There had been an end of the story ... and Boyne had lived long enough to know that abrupt endings were best.

As his steamer pushed her way up the estuary he was still asking himself how he should employ his holiday. All his thoughts were with his interrupted work, with the man who had temporarily replaced him, and of whose judgment and temper he was not quite sure. He could not as yet bring himself to consider his own plans for the coming weeks, because, till he could get back to Brazil, everything that might happen to him seemed equally uninteresting and negligible.

At dinner that evening, at the famous _Chapeau Rouge_ of Bordeaux, the fresh truffles cooked in white wine, and washed down with a bottle of Château Margaux insensibly altered his mood. He had forgotten what good food could be like. His view of life was softened, and even the faces of the people at the other tables, commonplace as they were, gradually began to interest him. At the steamer landing the walls were plastered over with flamboyant advertisements of the watering-places of the Basque coast: Cibour, Hendaye, St. Jean de Luz, Biarritz. A band of gay bathers on a white beach, under striped umbrellas, was labelled Hendaye; another, of slim ladies silhouetted on a terrace against a cobalt sea, while their partners absorbed cocktails at little tables, stood for Biarritz. The scene recalled to Boyne similar spectacles all the world over: casinos, dancing, gambling, the monotonous rattle and glare of cosmopolitan pleasure. And suddenly he felt that to be in such a crowd was what he wanted—a crowd of idle insignificant people, not one of whom he would ever care to see again. He fancied the idea of bands playing, dancers undulating over polished floors, expensive food served on flowery terraces, high play in crowded over-heated gaming-rooms. It was the lonely man’s flight from himself, the common impulse of hard workers on first coming out of the wilderness. He took the train for Biarritz....

The place was in full season; but he found a room in a cheap hotel far from the sea, and forthwith began to mix with the crowd. At first his deep inner loneliness cut him off from them; that people should be leading such lives seemed too absurd and inconsequent. But gradually the glitter took him, as it often had before after a long bout of hard work and isolation; he enjoyed the feeling of being lost in the throng, alone and unnoticed, with no likelihood of being singled out, like Uncle Edward, for some agreeable adventure.

Adventure! He had come to hate the very word. His one taste of the thing had been too bitter. All he wanted now was to be amused; and he hugged his anonymity. For three days he wandered about, in cafés, on terraces above the sea, and in the gaming-rooms. He even made an excursion across the Spanish border; but he came back from it tired and dispirited. Solitude and scenery were not what he wanted; he plunged into the Medley again.

On the fourth day he saw the announcement: “Gala Dinner and Dance tonight at the _Mirasol_.” The _Mirasol_ was the newest and most fashionable hotel in Biarritz—the “Palace” of the moment. The idea of assisting at the gala dinner took Boyne’s fancy, and in the afternoon he strolled up to the hotel to engage a table. But they were all bespoken, and he sat down in the hall to glance over some illustrated papers. The place, at that hour, was nearly empty; but presently he heard a pipe of childish laughter coming from the corner where the lift was caged. Several liveried lift-boys were hanging about in idleness, and among them was a little girl with long legs, incredibly short skirts and a fiery bush of hair. Boyne laid down his paper and looked at her; but her back was turned to him. She was wrestling with the smallest of the lift-boys, while the others looked on and grinned. Presently a stout lady descended from a magnificent motor, entered the hotel and walked across the hall to the lift. Instantly the boys stood to attention, and the red-haired child, quiet as a mouse, slipped into the lift after the stout lady, and shot up out of sight. When the lift came down again, she sprang out, and instantly resumed her romp with the boys. This time her face was turned toward Boyne, and he saw that she was Zinnie Wheater. He got up from his chair to go toward her, but another passenger was getting into the lift, and Zinnie followed, and disappeared again. The next time it came down, two or three people were waiting for it; Zinnie slipped in among them, flattening herself into a corner. Boyne sat and watched her appearing and disappearing in this way for nearly an hour—it was evidently her way of spending the afternoon. And not for the first time, presumably; for several of the passengers recognised her, and greeted her with a nod or a joke. One fat old gentleman in spats produced a bag of sweets, and pinched her bare arm as he gave it to her; and a lady in black with a little girl drew the latter close to her, and looked past Zinnie as if she had not been there....

At last there came a lull in the traffic, the attendants relapsed into lassitude, and Zinnie, after circling aimlessly about the hall, slipped behind the porter’s desk, inspected the letters in the mahogany pigeon-holes against the wall, and began to turn over the papers on the desk. Then she caught sight of the porter approaching from a distance, slid out from behind the desk, waltzed down the length of the hall and back, and stopped with a yawn just in front of Boyne. For a moment she did not seem to notice him; but presently she sidled up, leaned over his shoulder, and said persuasively: “May I look at the pictures with you?”

He laid the paper aside and glanced up at her. She stared a moment or two, perplexedly, and then flushed to the roots of her hair. “Martin—why, I believe it’s old Martin!”

“Yes, it’s old Martin—but you’re a new Zinnie, aren’t you?” he rejoined.

Her eyes were riveted on him; he saw that she was half shy, half eager to talk. She perched on the arm of his chair and took his neck in her embrace, as Judith used to.

“Well, it’s a long time since I saw you. I’m lots older—and you are too,” she added reflectively. “I don’t believe you’d have known me if I hadn’t spoken to you, would you?”

“Not if you hadn’t had that burning bush,” he said, touching her hair. His voice was trembling; he could hardly see her for the blur in his eyes. If he closed his lids he might almost imagine that the thin arm about his neck was Judith’s....

“Well, how’s everybody?” he asked, a little hoarsely.

“Oh, awfully well,” said Zinnie. “But you don’t look very well yourself,” she added, turning a sidelong glance on him.

“Never mind about me. Are you here together, all of you—or have the others stayed at Dinard?”

“Dinard?” She seemed to be puzzled by the question.

“Wasn’t your mother going to buy a house in the country near Dinard?”

“Was she? I dunno. We’ve never had a house of our own,” said Zinnie.

“Never anywhere?”

“No. I guess it would only bother mother to have a house. She likes hotels better. She’s married again, you know; and she’s getting fat.”

“Married?”

“Didn’t you know about that either? How funny! She’s married to Mr. Dobree,” said Zinnie, swinging her legs against Boyne’s chair.

Boyne sat silent, and she continued, her eyes wandering over him critically: “I guess you’ve had a fever, haven’t you—or else something bad with your liver?”

“Nothing of the sort. I was never better. But you’re all here, then, I suppose?” His heart stood still as he made a dash at the question.

“Yes; we’re all here,” said Zinnie indifferently. “At least Terry’s at school in Switzerland, you see; and Blanca’s at a convent in Paris, ’cos she got engaged again to a lift-boy who was a worse rotter than the first; and Bun and Beechy are in Rome, in their father’s palace. They hate writing, so we don’t actually know how they are.”

“Ah—” Boyne commented. He looked away from her, staring across the deserted hall. “But Chip’s here?” he asked.

Zinnie shook her red curls gravely. “No, he isn’t here either.” She hesitated a moment, swinging her legs. “He’s buried,” she said.

“Buried—?”

“Didn’t you know that either? You’ve been ever so far away, I suppose. Chip got menin—meningitis, isn’t it? We were at Chamonix, for Terry. The doctors couldn’t do anything. It was last winter—no, the winter before. We all cried awfully; we wore black for three months. And so after that mother decided she’d better marry Mr. Dobree; because she was too lonely, she said.”

“Ah, lonely—”

“Yes; and so after a while we came to Paris and she was married. It must have been two years ago, because the steps were with us still; and Beechy and I wore little pink dresses at the wedding, and Bun was page. I wonder you didn’t see our photographs in the ‘Herald.’ Don’t you ever read the ‘Herald’?”

“Not often,” Boyne had to admit.

Zinnie continued to swing her legs against the side of his chair. “And it’s then we found out what Mr. Dobree’s Christian name is,” she rambled on. “We had work doing it; but Terry managed to see the papers he had to sign the day of the wedding, and so we found out. His name’s Azariah. We never thought of that, did we? It’s the name of a man who made millions in mines; so I s’pose when he died he left all his money to Mr. Dobree.”

“Made millions in mines?”

“Well, that’s what Scopy said. She said: ‘Not know that? You little heathens! Why, of course, Azariah was a minor prophet.’”

“Oh, of course; naturally,” Boyne murmured, swept magically back to the world of joyous incongruities in which he had lived enchanted with the little Wheaters.

“So we think that’s why he’s so rich, and why mother married him,” Zinnie concluded, with a final kick on the side of the chair; then she slid down, put her hands on her hips, pirouetted in front of Boyne, and held out the bag of pink glazed paper which the old gentleman who wore spats had given her. “Have a chocolate? The ones in gold paper have got liqueur in ’em,” she said. Boyne shook his head, and she continued to look at him attentively. At last: “Martin, darling, aren’t those _Abdullahs_ you’re smoking? Will you let me have one?” she said in a coaxing voice.

“Let you have one? You don’t mean to say you smoke?”

“No; but I have a friend who does.” Boyne held out his cigarette-case with a shrug, and she drew out a small handful, and flitted away to the lift. When she came back her face was radiant. “It’s awfully sweet of you,” she said. “You always were an old darling. Don’t you want to come upstairs and see mother? She was a little tired after lunch, so I don’t believe she’s gone out yet.”

Boyne got to his feet with a gesture of negation. “Sorry, my dear; but I’m afraid I can’t. I—fact is, I’m just here for a few hours ... taking the train back to Bordeaux presently,” he stammered.

“Oh, are you? That’s too bad. Mother will be awfully sorry—and so will Judy.”

Boyne cleared his throat, and brought out abruptly: “Ah, she’s here too—Judy?”

Zinnie stared at the question. “Course she is. Only just today she’s off on an excursion with some P’ruvians. They’ve got an awfully long name—I can’t remember it. They have two Rolls-Royces. She won’t be back not till just before dinner. She’ll have to be back then, because she’s got a new dress for the dance tonight. It’s a pity you can’t come back and see her in it.”

“Yes—it’s a pity. But I can’t.” He held out his hand, and she put her little bony claw into it. “Goodbye, child,” he said; then, abruptly, he bent down to her. “Kiss me, Zinnie.” She held up her merry face, and he laid his lips on her cheek. “Goodbye,” he repeated.

He had really meant, while he talked with her, to go back to his hotel and pack up, and catch the next train for anywhere. The place was like a tomb to him now; under all the noise and glitter his past was buried. He walked away with hurried strides from the _Mirasol_; but when he got back to his own hotel he sat down in his room and stared about him without making any effort to pack. He sat there for a long time—for all the rest of the afternoon—without moving. Once he caught himself saying aloud: “She’s got a new dress for the dance.” He laughed a little at the thought, and became immersed in his memories....

Boyne dined at a restaurant—he didn’t remember where—turned in at a cinema for an hour, and then got into his evening clothes, and walked up through the warm dark night to the _Mirasol_. The great building, shining with lights, loomed above a tranquil sea; music drifted out from it, and on the side toward the sea its wide terrace was thronged with ladies in bright dresses, and their partners. Boyne walked up among them; but as he reached the terrace a drizzling rain began to fall, and laughing and crying out the dancers all hurried back into the hotel. He stood alone on the damp flagging, and paced up and down slowly before the uncurtained windows. The dinner was over—the restaurant was empty, and through the windows he saw the waiters preparing the tables again for supper. Farther on, he passed other tall windows, giving on a richly upholstered drawing-room where groups of elderly people, at tables with shaded lamps, were playing bridge and poker. Among them he noticed a stout lady in a low-necked black dress. Her much-exposed back was turned to him, and he recognised the shape of her head, the thatch of rippled hair, silver-white now (she had kept her resolve of not dyeing it), and the turn of her white arms as she handled her cards. Opposite her sat her partner, also white-headed, in a perfectly cut dinner-jacket; the lamplight seemed to linger appreciatively on his lustrous pearl studs and sleeve-links. It was Mr. Dobree, grown stouter too, with a reddish fold of flesh above his immaculate collar. The couple looked placid, well fed, and perfectly satisfied with life and with each other.

Boyne continued his walk, and turning an angle of the building, found himself facing the windows of the ballroom. The terrace on that side, being away from the sea, was but faintly lit, and the spectacle within seemed therefore more brilliantly illuminated.

At first he saw only a blur of light and colour; couples revolving slowly under the spreading chandeliers, others streaming in and out of the doorways, or grouped about the floor in splashes of brightness. The music rose and fell in palpitating rhythms, paused awhile, and began again in obedience to a rattle of hand-clapping. The floor was already crowded, but Boyne’s eyes roved in vain from one slender bare-armed shape to another; then he said to himself: “But it’s nearly three years since I saw her. She’s grown up now—perhaps I’m looking at her without knowing her....”

The thought that one of those swaying figures might be Judith’s, that at that very instant she might be gazing out at him with unknown eyes, sent such a pang through him that he moved away again into the darkness. The rain had almost ceased, but a faint wind from the sea drove the wet air against his face; he might almost have fancied he was crying. The pain of not seeing her was unendurable. It seemed to empty his world....

He heard voices and steps approaching behind him on the terrace, and to avoid being scrutinised he mechanically turned back to the window. And there she was, close to him on the other side of the pane, moving across the long reflections of the floor. And he had imagined that he might not know her!

She had just stopped dancing; the arm of a very tall young man with a head as glossy as his shirt-front detached itself from her waist. She was facing Boyne now—she was joining a group near his window. Two or three young girls greeted her gaily as she passed them. The centre of the room was being cleared for a pair of professional dancers, and Judith, waving away a gilt ballroom chair which somebody proffered, remained standing, clustered about by other slender and glossy young men. Boyne, from without, continued to gaze at her.

He had not even asked himself if she had changed—if she had grown up. He had totally forgotten his fear that he might not recognise her. He knew now that if she had appeared to him as a bent old woman he would have known her.... He watched her with a passionate attentiveness. Her silk dress was of that peculiar carnation-pink which takes a silver glaze like the bloom on a nectarine. The rich stuff stood out from her in a double tier of flounces, on which, as she stood motionless, her hands seemed to float like birds on little sunlit waves. Her hair was moulded to her head in close curves like the ripples of a brown stream. Instead of being cut short in the nape it had been allowed to grow, and was twisted into a figure eight, through which was thrust an old-fashioned diamond arrow. Her throat and neck were bare, and so were her thin arms; but a band of black velvet encircled one of her wrists, relieving the tender rose-and-amber of her dress and complexion. Her eyes seemed to Boyne to have grown larger and more remote, but her mouth was round and red, as it always was when she was amused or happy. While he watched her one of the young men behind her bent over to say something. As she listened she lifted a big black fan to her lips, and her lids closed for a second, as they did when she wanted to hold something sweet between them. But when she furled the fan her expression changed, and her face suddenly became as sad as an autumn twilight.

“_Judith!_” Boyne thought; as if her being Judith, her being herself, were impossible to believe, yet too sweet for anything else in the world to be true.... It was one of her moments of beauty—that fitful beauty which is so much more enchanting and perilous than the kind that gets up and lies down every day with its wearer. This might be—Boyne said to himself—literally the only day, the only hour, in which the queer quarrelling elements that composed her would ever join hands in a celestial harmony. It did not matter what had brought the miracle about. Perhaps she was in love with the young man who had bent over her, and was going to marry him. Or perhaps she was still a child, pleased at her new dress, and half proud, half frightened in the waking consciousness of her beauty, and the power it exercised.... Whichever it was, Boyne knew he would never know. He drew back into an unlit corner of the terrace, and sat there a long time in the dark, his head thrown back and his hands locked behind it. Then he got up and walked away into the night.

Two days afterward, the ship which had brought him to Europe started on her voyage back to Brazil. On her deck stood Boyne, a lonely man.

THE END

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_By EDITH WHARTON_

THE CHILDREN
TWILIGHT SLEEP
HERE AND BEYOND
THE MOTHER’S RECOMPENSE
OLD NEW YORK
FALSE DAWN
THE OLD MAID
THE SPARK
NEW YEAR’S DAY
THE GLIMPSES OF THE MOON
THE AGE OF INNOCENCE
SUMMER
THE REEF
THE MARNE
FRENCH WAYS AND THEIR MEANING

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TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES

● Typos fixed; non-standard spelling and dialect retained. ● Added table of Contents. ● Enclosed italics font in _underscores_.