Chapter TEN: The Fall of the Emerald (2)

“It begins a long time ago, it is a long story. Having to do with the loves of babes, the wisdom of sucklings, and the sins of the fathers. And the sins of the fathers. But I will tell you more when we come to Harrod’s.”

“But we passed Harrod’s long ago!”

“There is another. You will see. Patience.” Through Hammersmith and Chiswick, by Ranelagh and Roehampton, we sped into the veiled countryside. The glow of London was a yellow arch in the night behind. We passed the last omnibus on its last journey to a far-flung corner of the town.

“But,” I pleaded, “I don’t even know where we are going to!”

“Why, to Sutton Marle! Didn’t I tell you? It’s not far....”

“But I don’t know Sir Maurice! Really, Iris, how dare you let me in for this?”

“It is all right, dear, you are expected. I said to Hilary, not an hour ago on the telephone: ‘I am not for Sutton Marle unless I may bring my one friend.’”

“Well, I never heard such cheek! And why, Iris, am I your one friend?”

“Because once upon a time you shamed me of my shame. Because you did not hold me cheap. Because romance dies hard in you. Because, dear, I rather like you. And that is why I told Hilary that you were my friend and that I would not dare Sutton Marle without you, adding that as he had put you off for dinner it would be something for you to do.”

“Iris, you are laughing all the time, you who told me you were afraid!”

She glanced at me just then, and that second’s smile is like a wound on my memory. A car screamed and passed us, and she cried through the disordered air: “I am afraid, but of course I am gay, too! Haven’t I waited twelve years for my inheritance!”

The flame of the lights on the road ahead made a wall of blackness on each side of us. I was like a child in this blackness, and it seemed to me that her voice was the voice of the night. I did not know what to say. I said: “Iris, that girl will die without Napier.”

Minutes later, she said: “If people died of love I must have risen from the dead to be driving this car now!”

“Indeed, Iris, how can I argue about love against your experience!”

“My friend, you can’t shame me! For I am shame itself come to life. Yes, I have lit many small fires to quench one large fire. I have been unsuccessful. Thank God, thank God for that! And now let the one large fire burn, with a boy and a girl of eighteen for fuel. Nothing else matters.”

“My dear, so much else matters! Restraints, nobilities, decencies, sacrifices!”

We passed slowly through a village High Street, hailed and mocked good-naturedly by a group of men emerging from an inn.

She said: “In the ancient love-tales and the songs of the Jongleurs we read of maidens sacrificed on the altar of circumstance. I was a maiden, even I, once upon a time. Dear, I am afraid you must take my word for that. And I, a maid, was sacrificed to the vulgar ambitions of a Sir Maurice. So let us not talk of sacrifice. It makes me sick with anger.”

Not fast, not slow, the Hispano-Suiza swept through Surrey. Then she said sharply: “But if Venice had had a child!”

I could not see her face, for her hat and the darkness were between us. But ever so faintly I could see her mouth, and her lips were parted, as though she was praying. I wondered if she was praying to whom she could be praying. “She has a God,” had said that captain of men.

“And why did you say that so bitterly, Iris?”

“Was I bitter? Oh, that’s a sin, to think of that angel and to be bitter.”

“Angel? Did you say angel?”

“I said angel,” she said, and no other answer had I but from the stork crying dolorously to warn corners of our flight.

“If Venice,” she said reasonably, “had had a child, I would have called to Napier in vain. We can’t know the beginning and end of honour, nor what it is, nor what it will do, nor what will debauch it, nor what will make it unbending as iron. Let us say I have debauched Napier’s honour. Oh, let us say anything! We don’t stand on words on ultimate nights like these. Honour is like a little child, let us say, and like a little child it may be led away by a shining toy, and in this case I am the shining toy. But had Venice had a child I might have shone like Aldebaran and called Napier in vain. And that would have been right and just. We must all give way before children, always, always. Oh, if people had always done that, what miseries wouldn’t the world have been spared! Those whose dreams are clean must give way to children, for babies will carry clean dreams further than the wisest of old men, and slowly the world will rise above the age of smoke and savagery....”

“But it’s absurd, Iris! What chance has the girl had of having a child yet!”

“But I am not pretending to play fair! Or did you think I was? I awoke from my illness, and I awoke suddenly to life. Awaking, I took my chance as it came. And quickly, quickly, for fear of giving Venice a longer chance. And it’s because I haven’t played fair that I am going to Sir Maurice’s house now.”

“Oh!” I said. “Good God! Let me out of this car, Iris! I will walk back to London.”

“Napier doesn’t know. Napier would be frantic if he knew. Napier is dining with Venice to-night. They would both be frantic if they knew I had taken Sir Maurice’s challenge and gone down to Sutton Marle. But I must go, to make unfairness a little less unfair. I must let Sir Maurice have his last joy of me. Besides, there is a fascination in letting men tell the truth to one. There is a fascination in wondering if it will ever be the truth. But look! Oh, look! There is Harrod’s!”

The car had pulled up on the brow of a small hill. The lights searched across the road into an unhedged field. Iris pointed along the flame of light.

“There is Harrod’s,” she said gravely.

“But where is Harrod’s? I see a field and what looks like a giant oak.”

“That is Harrod’s. Not an oak, but an ash. It is very old, and smells of fairies and moonlight.”

There were once two roads that led away from a certain tree.

The tree, a solitary giant of enormous girth, stood perhaps twenty yards from the road. Its trunk dammed the far-flung eyes of the car, and in the light its leaves were made of silver, and you fancied that, had there been a breath of wind, it had spoken from its ancient wisdom, of which this night stood so sorely in need; but never a whisper stirred the countryside.

“Iris, doesn’t that make your passions look ... silly?”

She took my hand, and lifted it, and dropped it. I do not know why she did that. Her face was hidden. It seemed to me that a long time passed before she spoke, and I seemed to think of many things.

“If there was a moon,” she said at last, “a little way behind Harrod’s you would see a small hill, and on the hill you would see a white house. That is where Gerald and I were born. Perhaps Gerald knows why now. That is one of the many things Napier and I have to talk out in the solitudes, why all we men and women are born. There must be a reason. Across the fields this way is Sutton Marle, where Napier was born. We used to play beneath this tree, Gerald, Boy, Napier and I. Boy was older than us, and bossed us. So there was a revolt, and then we made two camps, Boy and Gerald, Napier and I. Sometimes Aunt Eve, who took care of Gerald and me when mother died, would take us all up to London, and we would have tea at Harrod’s. Napier and I loved Harrod’s because we at once got lost there. And so we called this tree Harrod’s, because we were happy here, too. We were twelve then. Later on they discouraged our being together. Aunt Eve didn’t want me to be made miserable when I grew up by not being allowed to marry Napier, for she knew that I didn’t come into Sir Maurice’s plans. Poor Maurice, I’ve crashed into them now, haven’t I! Father got poorer, we sold this house, and went to live in Cambridge Square. Napier was not allowed to see me any more, but we managed to meet somehow. Gerald helped, Aunt Eve helped, Boy helped. That was when Boy first loved me, he said later, because of my determination not to lose Napier. But Sir Maurice won. I was stronger than Napier, but I was not so strong as Sir Maurice. He wanted Napier to marry a rich girl, and Iris March was only the daughter of the younger branch of a bankrupt house. One day, when I was eighteen, I got a wire from Napier to meet him here at Harrod’s that afternoon. I borrowed the money for a taxi--bit from Boy, bit from Hilary--and here Napier was, white, desperate. In a general clean-up before going up to Oxford he had promised his father never to see me again. ‘I like Iris,’ Sir Maurice had said, ‘but she comes of rotten stock.’ I don’t think we had ever realised before that we were in love. I suppose I grew up in that one second. But Napier was still a boy of eighteen, while I was suddenly as old as the Queen of Hearts. I told him I loved him. Dear, I have known many men, I have married two, but I have only told one that I loved him, and he was a boy. Poor Napier, so torn, white, distracted. Afraid of my love, which seemed to him almost unholy, afraid of his father, who seemed to him almost holy. England, my England! His father was strong in Napier, and the Harpendens were strong in him. They were stronger than me at eighteen, and they were stronger than the sweet memories of Harrod’s. I said to Napier then, just over there where the lights fall by that trunk, I said, eighteen to eighteen: ‘Napier, I think I have a body that burns for love. Napier, I shall burn it with love, but I never will say ‘I love you’ to any man but you, because it never will be true.’ And what I said at eighteen is true now at thirty, I have never said I loved him to any man but Napier, for it hasn’t been true. I have given myself, in disdain, in desire, with disgust, with delight, but I have kept to that silly, childish boast of mine. I say that to my shame, but now shame is a weed under my foot. I married because my body was hungry for love and born to love and must love. And I thought I would destroy my body with love’s delight, but all I did was to destroy a good man. Hector Storm went off to Ireland and died because one night in my sleep I whispered Napier’s name. Or perhaps I had whispered it many nights. I told him that he was being jealous of a ghost, but he wouldn’t believe. Now all those things are passed. The nymph unloosened her girdle to desire, and now she has unloosened it to her only love. One grows out of everything, even desire: and then one can love. Look, Harrod’s is smiling, all silver and smiling! Here Sir Maurice sacrificed me twelve years ago. To-night I have to say to him: ‘This is what you have done, Maurice--the unhappiness of Venice, the unhappiness of your son, and twelve years of hell for me. Are you content?’ Oh God, it’s been hell, these twelve years! If you had kissed hell, as I have kissed hell, if you had sacrificed to hell, as I have sacrificed my body to hell, you would know what I mean. But now I can’t grudge Maurice the final satisfaction of telling me what he thinks of me. Dear, it matters so little what men like Maurice think of one. They worship all that is despicable, they despise all that is really good. From the beginning of time this world has been wounded by the manliness of fools. Oh, let Maurice have his say to-night! And mighty Guy. And my sweet Hilary! Let them have their say. I can only answer them with love. How could I answer them but with love? But I can silence them with love! Love, love, love! A glorious word, a matchless word! But isn’t it? Love, love! I am in love. I glory in love, I will die in love! Love, my sweet, love, love! To be in love as I am in love is to be in heaven before hell was made. I am in love!”

The car rushed on, up a wide slope that curved handsomely so that the light played on meadows and startled the beasts of the fields.

“And you are so sure, Iris, that these three men, who have known you all your life and one of whom has loved you with all his heart ever since he saw you walk down South Audley Street, all brown stockings and blue eyes--you are so sure, Iris, that nothing they can say will touch you?”

The lights swept over great lodge-gates standing wide open before a curving avenue of tall trees. We passed beneath them, showering gold on their trunks. The drive shone like a yellow carpet beneath our lights.

“I tell you,” Iris whispered, “I shall be a very Saint George for steadfastness!”

The stork fled up the curving avenue of Sutton Marle. It seemed, to me, to crouch with fear beneath the noble line of trees. They stood above us like towers. I was afraid.

“This is the lion’s den, Iris!”

“Well, I have killed lions, and tigers too, in twelve years’ wandering through hell.”

“But this is the den of the king of lions, Iris! This is the den of the lion of England!”

“Love smiles at lions. Love can never be a clown, but a lion can wear an ass’s skin. Darling, I’m no good at natural history, but I have studied history.”

“You couldn’t mock it so unless you loved it very deeply. You are like a child, dear Iris, daring her father and mother. These trees----”

“But I laugh at the trees of Sutton Marle! I always did, I never could play with them, not even believe in them. I tell you, there is no tree but Harrod’s, my servant, and my master and my playmate tree, Harrod’s. Oh, how Harrod’s hates Sir Maurice! It makes me afraid, to think how Harrod’s hates Maurice Harpenden. Let him beware as he walks beneath it!”

Then the trees parted from above us and we came into an open place where stood a fountain, and round the fountain we swept a circle and came before the doors of a long white manor house. De Travest’s car stood there. As we drew up beside it the doors of the white house opened and a fat old man stood at the head of the steps. His hair was like his house, quite white.

“Truble, we will go round by the garden,” Iris said.

The fat old butler looked very gravely down at Iris. She was like a small knight at the foot of the broad steps, he a kindly old dragon up above. Oh, he looked so grave!

Iris said to me: “Mr. Truble is my oldest friend. He is a very nice man. Truble, what have you to say to that?”

“Sir Maurice did not expect you, Miss Iris.”

“How, Truble! Sir Maurice knew I was coming!”

“But he did not think you would come, Miss Iris. But his lordship expected you. The gentlemen are in the library.”

“His lordship, Truble, does me too much honour in thinking I can keep my word.... Truble, my dear!”

I had been looking round me when that sudden cry shook me like the cry of a bird in pain. The fat old butler was weeping, there was not a doubt of it. There at the head of the broad steps, quite motionless, a broad black shape under his white hair. Iris had him by the shoulder, was shaking him, her hat like a toy against that black shape.

“Truble,” she said, so huskily, “that I should ever have made you cry! My dear, my dear!”

“Sir,” the old man appealed to me down below with a funnily out-flung hand. “I never was so ashamed of myself in my life! But it came on me all of a sudden hearing Miss Iris say, here at the doors of Sutton Marle, in a voice as hard as that ash she was always in love with, that about his lordship doing her too much honour about her keeping her word. I held Miss Iris in my arms, sir, when she wasn’t above a year old, and now--I’m sure I beg your pardon, sir. And yours, Miss Iris. I’m sure I don’t know what’s come over me to-night....”

One leather arm had the old man by the shoulder. Iris’s face seemed painted white.

“Truble,” she said, so huskily, “I am so sorry to have upset you. You have been faithful to me, Truble, for thirty years, and now, I suppose, you mustn’t love me any more. You don’t love me any more, Truble?”

“Miss Iris, Miss Iris! There’s no good comes from loving, I see that!”

“Then, Truble, I here and now do release you from giving me a thought ever again. Adieu, Truble.”

Her face painted white, her eyes absorbed in what they did not see, she came down to where I stood. “Come,” she said, expressionless. She could make her words into pieces of iron, and I did not dare to look at the motionless old man at the head of the steps. We skirted the house in silence. I supposed we were on a lawn. The rains of yesterday had not softened the drought, the grass was hard as stone under the feet. I said: “Iris, you are moved already--you who were not to be moved by anything that was said!”

I felt her fingers tightening round my arm. Hers were strong white fingers. “I hadn’t bargained for Truble. He should have been in bed by now. Often in moments of self-hatred and contempt I have taken a little heart from that old man’s devotion. And he would always send me wishes on my birthday. No, I hadn’t bargained for Truble.... Look!”

“Why, they are playing bridge!”

“And, dear, how grimly! See, Hilary is looking quite young, he must have a bad hand. And Guy Apollo Belvedere--Oh, he’s thinking!--and then he plays the wrong card! Ah, poor Guy! He always did treat his trumps as though they were tulips, with too much respect. And Sir Maurice! Now, dear heart, what do you think of Sir Maurice? Isn’t he the handsome soldier!”

“Oh, handsome! Napier with a gay sinner’s face....”

“Judge him for me! Oh, do! Here we are, conspirators, whispering. Now, judge me, first, Mr. Townshend of Magralt.”

“Iris, must I! Can I? I can’t!”

“Of course you must, can, will! Speak without thinking. It is only thus that truth is made.”

“He is a good man. His goodness is supported by his principles, his kindness is rebuked by his prejudices. He is not a weak man, but he is the weakest man in that room. He has loved but one woman in his life, and she has crucified his heart on a hundred carnal Calvarys. But he still loves her, and that is why he is the weakest man in that room.”

“And you, satyr, you are the cruellest man I ever met in my life! But judge me, secondly, my lord Viscount de Travest.”

“He is the elder brother of honour. He is that rarest of men, a schoolboy who has grown out of his schooldays but remains, by strength of will, a schoolboy. He prefers to be that. He never did an unworthy thing, and has thought less mean ones than most people. Like all decent Englishmen, he is like a woman: he knows everything without ever having been taught anything. He has a profound sense of obedience, therefore he is a good commander. He never thinks when he is alone, lest thoughts should undermine his sense of obedience and paralyse his habit of command. One day a thought will strike him, and instantly he will cease to be the captain of his soul. He is the only man in England who actually believes in obeying the King.”

“Oh, how horrified the King would be! And of Sir Maurice, enemy to Iris March, what have you to say? Besides the fact that he is the cleverest man in that room. Oh, he is clever, that Maurice! It was he who had old Truble waiting for me. Judge me that man!”

“But I don’t know him, Iris!”

“His face is there, man--the proconsular features, the cunning Norman nose, the smile--Oh, my God, the smile! And you won’t, my friend, take my opinion of him?”

“Iris, how can you ask me to do that! We can’t take any woman’s opinion of any man. They find evil in good men, they overlook the vices of cads....”

“Oh, Maurice is not good, not bad! Only immemorially infantile, like all successful men....”

Where we stood now the lawn was damp and velvet-soft, the air whispered of flowers. The light that fell across the lawn from the three tall French-windows reached almost to our feet. It was a long, oak-panelled, scholarly room in which the three men sat, towards one side, about a card-table. They were absorbed in their game, silent figures of black and white. Yes, the fine profile of Sir Maurice seemed apt to smile. Iris murmured: “We will wait for them to finish their game.”

As my hand moved to throw away a cigarette I touched a cold stone, and I saw that we were standing by a sun-dial. Iris was looking at me, and clearest of all the happenings of that night I remember that long moment of Iris’s looking, and how, as I looked into her eyes, her beauty seemed to enwrap itself with the whisper of the flowers and enter into my being, so that I cared not for right nor wrong. My hand rested on the sun-dial. She laid her hand on mine, and her hand was colder than the sun-dial.

III

Sir Maurice received me very kindly. I had thought, seeing him at the card-table, that he was a tall man; but he was small, slight, taut; very ready to smile. He offered me a cigar, which I was very pleased to take. Iris said she would not smoke just yet. No one sat down, but every one seemed at his ease. It was as though Iris and I were paying an evening call. Hilary apologised to me about dinner. I forgave him. Somehow, suddenly, I found myself absorbed by Guy and Hilary. I found that Iris was alone. It was as though her green hat stamped her aloneness with a light. How bright that green hat looked in that scholarly room, like a green flower, like a green flame! Iris stood by the card-table, on which the cards were scattered face-upwards.

“Good of you to come, Iris,” the General said. He smiled very easily. He was one of those young old men who are very old when you look close. He was charming.

Iris looked up from the cards across the room to Hilary. Her eyes were untroubled and clear, she was very still, and her lips were silken red. She said: “Hilary asked me. So I came.”

“It was my idea, Iris,” Sir Maurice said, and he smiled. He was fidgeting with a black ebony paper-knife. “My idea entirely. Hilary was against it. Very glad you brought our young friend. Sit down, Iris. We are all of the world here, we are civilised people. Let’s talk about this like civilised people.”

Iris did not sit down. Maybe some one sat down, but I don’t remember. Iris picked up the ace of clubs from the table and looked at it thoughtfully.

“That was really why I came, Maurice. Because it must have been your idea. You are a very clever man. It was thoughtful of you to give me a chance of saying good-bye to Truble.” She looked up from the ace of clubs to Guy with her untroubled eyes. She had not once looked at Sir Maurice. “Guy, what have you to say to me? I think you have wanted to say something to me for a long time. It would have been cowardly to leave England for good without giving you the chance.”

“Iris,” said Hilary sharply, “Guy has always been very kind about you. Hm. Much kinder than I’ve been.”

“Yes, dear,” she smiled so suddenly at Hilary. That was a surprising, complete smile. It excluded us all, it excluded even Iris and Hilary, it excluded every one but the friend of childhood and a long little thing, all brown stockings and blue eyes. That was a true smile. “Hm,” said Hilary.

Sir Maurice put a whisky-and-soda into my hand, but I do not remember tasting it. The slight, poised old gentleman’s smile troubled me. His was too fine a face to smile like that. He had clever, darting eyes. I felt that Iris was making an effort to keep her eyes from him. And I felt that the two enemies were each terrified of the other.

Guy spoke for the first time, he murmured: “It was brave of you to come, Iris. I don’t know much about using words, but I think it was noble of you to come. I don’t know any other woman who would have even thought of accepting Maurice’s invitation. But we, your friends, have never compared you to other women. In some things to their disadvantage. We have always admired your pluck. But we have admired your candour and honesty even more. That is why this sickening business baffles us so. Maurice and I just thought it might be fair both to us and to you if we were to try to clear it up a little.” And then Guy snapped: “I’m damned if I want to hate you, Iris.”

Iris broke the back of the ace of clubs and dropped it among the others on the green cloth, where it lay cruelly curled.

“Steady, Iris, steady!” said Sir Maurice. And he tried with the black ebony paper-knife to straighten out the ace of clubs. And he smiled. But Iris looked at Guy, and she seemed very tall.

“Iris,” Hilary said gently, “we loved you too much as a child not to be able to hate the woman who has gone out of her way to kill every memory of that child....”

“That’s it, Iris,” Guy murmured, restrained, amiable. “You see, as a child and as a girl you were very much in our hearts. Much more than any other child and girl has ever been. I don’t know why. And in spite of all things you’ve done we’ve always ... well, we’ve always kept one side of us which was yours for the asking. I mean, Iris, we couldn’t believe in you as a ... well, as a decent woman, but we’ve just stayed fond of you. Even when we’ve had to hear your name being pitched about by vile women and ghastly cads. Until now. But now....”

“A moment, Guy!” The clever, darting eyes, the neat figure, the iron-grey hair, waving just a little. He smiled. He waved the black ebony paper-knife at Iris as though she was a naughty girl. He knew Iris inside-out, did Sir Maurice. She wasn’t all bad, not she. Iris looked at him for the first time, and the clear untroubled look seemed now to be fixed stonily. I wondered if she was afraid. The General spoke quickly, brittle-bright: “Guy has just said, Iris, that we’ve known you all your life. But there’s more than that, much more. That’s why I wanted you to come here to-night. I wanted to show you us, Iris. This isn’t an ordinary elopement, Napier’s and yours. It’s a stab in the back----”

“Maurice, am I stabbing you in the back by coming here?”

“You were always a strange, unfrightened girl, Iris. But the stab in the back is made. It’s stabbing us, your people, in the back. Venice’s people aren’t in this as we are. But that isn’t what I want to tell you. Is it, Guy? And I’ve no intention of trying to beg Napier from you. I’m not even yet old enough to beg favours from a woman. No, it seems settled about you and Napier, as he told me this morning. And I tell you, Iris, it wasn’t my son who spoke to me this morning. It was an enchanted boy----”

“We are both of us enchanted, Maurice.” And Iris smiled. Her lips looked very red, silken red.

“Very good, very good! Well, you go to-morrow. That’s fixed. But I just wanted to show you us, Iris. I think you have forgotten us on your travels. You are of us. I think you have forgotten that. And you are stabbing us in the back. I’m not talking of Napier now as my son, my only son. Am I, Guy? Hilary? I’ve taken great pride in the boy’s career, I haven’t married again for his sake--but let all that go. I’m talking of Napier now just as one of us here, the us that you belong to, of the England that we stand for. We, Iris--you and us--we aren’t made only of flesh-and-blood. There’s a little devil of slackness who stands waiting for any of us who thinks he or she is only made of flesh-and-blood. We are made of air, too--this air, Iris, that we are breathing now. We are made of this air, you and us. We were born in it, our fathers and mothers were born in it. Guy, Hilary, I, you, Napier, we were all of us born within a hundred miles of this room, Guy at Mace, Hilary at Magralt, Napier and I here at Sutton Marie, and you not two miles away across the fields. We are of this soil, Iris, of this air, of this England which is still our England. My God, we haven’t much left, but we still have this. That is all I have to say, Iris. I just wanted to show you us, because I thought you must have forgotten us. You have decided, Iris, that you will break into our lives, and break up our lives. Why, Iris? What sort of hell is your ambition in the next world? Tell me that.”

“No, Maurice!” said Hilary sharply. “Keep to this world.”

Cold as stones were Iris’s eyes on Sir Maurice. She hated him beyond words or looks. “Don’t let’s talk of hell, Maurice,” she whispered. “It would shock even you if I were to tell you how much I know about it. I am leaving hell behind at last. And do you know, Maurice, that hell looks at me with your face? But I am leaving it behind now.”

“Listen, Iris. Just this one question.” Those clever, darting eyes were curiously, strangely kind. I could not understand Sir Maurice. It was as though he loved, feared, hated, indulged, Iris. He waved the black ebony paper-knife at her. “Now I am a man of the world, Iris. Unlike Napier, as you know. And what sort of a woman are you? Tell me that. I have known many bad women. I have liked some. I have liked you, Iris. You know that. But this isn’t badness. Damn it, girl, this is evil! There aren’t any words in English to describe what we think of a woman who comes wantonly between a man and his wife, a man and his career. I’m not saying anything of your having come between Napier and me. He looked at me this morning as though he hated me. But leave me out. You are smashing a man’s career and you have stolen a man from his wife. What sort of a woman are you, Iris? Tell us that.”

“Maurice!” And Iris smiled, and those very white teeth bit the moment into two pieces with their smile and dropped the pieces into limbo. “You are a baby sometimes, Maurice. You never dream of asking a woman ‘what sort of a woman are you?’ so long as she keeps to the laws made by men. But the first time you see a woman being a woman, you are surprised.”

“But what we don’t understand,” Guy murmured amiably, “is how you’ve come by an entirely different set of ideas from ours. I mean ... well, ideas about loyalty and treachery and things like that. You see, Iris, we’ve suddenly found to-day that we simply don’t begin to understand you. Isn’t that so, Hilary? I mean, we just don’t seem to think in the same sickening language.”

“Exactly,” Sir Maurice rapped out, with the black ebony paper-knife. “That’s it exactly, Iris. You see, this isn’t just your business and Napier’s business. This concerns _us_. This stabs at the roots of our life, Iris. But you and I don’t seem to think in the same language. I think in English.”

Iris whispered, with eyes of stone: “Unfortunately, I think in English, too....”

“Oh, come, Iris!” Guy murmured.

“If she didn’t think in English,” I said, “would she be here?”

Sir Maurice started. I was surprised, too.

“That’s true,” said he. “Quite true, boy. Yes.” And he smiled. I wished he wouldn’t smile.

“In that case,” Guy murmured, “all I can say is, Iris, that yours must be a very odd dialect of English. I mean, in yours there doesn’t seem to be any distinction between words which--well, they mean rather a lot to us. We’ve never even learned how to spell most of them, they’re so inevitably part of our lives, or should be. I’m not sure to this day if there’s an s in decency. One’s born knowing them....”

“Guy, I’ve had twelve years’ unhappiness. You talk to me of those words we are born knowing. I have had twelve years’ unhappiness through not being able to forget those words.”

“Unhappiness!” Sir Maurice rapped out. “Oh, come, child! You seem to have done exactly as you pleased all these years. I’m not saying you haven’t had bad luck--we’re all sorry about that. But if you have been unhappy can you blame any one but yourself?”

Iris’s face was very stern as she looked at Sir Maurice. I could not have thought that a beautiful woman could look so stern. And she made not one gesture of womanhood. She could have made but one, and asserted her right to live according to her womanhood. But that would have seemed to her to be playing not fair. She must meet men on their own ground always, always, and she must keep herself on their own ground without showing the effort she made. She would advantage herself neither with her womanhood nor her beauty. She seemed to look for a long time at Sir Maurice. Her lips were silken red, and I thought just then that to kiss them would be to kiss the infinite.

“Yes, Maurice. I can put the blame on three words.”

The General threw the paper-knife on to a small table, where it fell with a crash. “Weakness? Wickedness? Wantonness?”

“The three words I was thinking of make Sir Maurice Harpenden.”

Then, curiously, Sir Maurice darted a look at Hilary, as though to see how he stood with Hilary. Hilary was white. He said: “I’ve told you, Maurice, that you’re not free from blame. You’ve been too damned imperious with these children.”

“All this,” Guy murmured, “has got me beat, I’m afraid.”

“It hasn’t got you beat at all, Guy,” snapped Hilary. White he was. “Maurice, years ago, didn’t realise that in our time we are not our children’s masters. Their ideas are not ours, their ambitions are not ours. And there’s no reason why they should be, since ours have sent all Europe to the devil.”

Then Iris’s voice slashed the room like a sharp knife: “Maurice, did you understand what I said? I am here to-night that you should understand what you have done.”

“My dear Iris!” said Sir Maurice, again picking up the paper-knife. One saw why he had been so successful a soldier. He could evade any issue. “Boy and girl love!” he said helplessly to Guy. He looked at me. “Boy and girl love!” he said helplessly.

“You mustn’t despise it, Maurice,” Iris suddenly smiled, and I had a fancy that her smile was one of protecting a child from a man’s good-sense. “It won’t do to despise that boy and girl love, Maurice. It has lasted nearly all my life so far. And it will last me until I die.” She looked at Guy, and as soon as she looked away from the General the clear, untroubled, boyish look came back into those enormous eyes. “Napier and I were in love at eighteen, Guy. Napier and I have always been in love. But Sir Maurice had other ideas for Napier, and this is the result of them. I am sorry, Guy, but I am also human.”

“Love!” rapped out Sir Maurice. He was not smiling now.

“Love!” Iris whispered. “Love, Maurice! You daren’t look into my eyes and say you doubt my love for Napier. You daren’t say that my love is not the only thing in this room that is made in the image of God. You talk to me of your England. I despise your England, I despise the us that is us. We are shams with patrician faces and peasant minds. We are built of lies, Maurice, and we toil for the rewards of worms. You would have Napier toil for a worm’s reward, you are sorry I have broken Napier’s career in the Foreign Office. Maurice, I am glad. To you, it seems a worthy thing for a good man to make a success in the nasty arena of national strifes and international jealousies. To me, a world which thinks of itself in terms of puny, squalid, bickering little nations and not as one glorious field for the crusade of mankind is a world in which to succeed is the highest indignity that can befall a good man, it is a world in which good men are shut up like gods in a lavatory. Maurice, there are better things, nobler things, cleaner things, than can be found in any career that will glorify a man’s name or nationality. You thought to bully me with our traditions. You are right, they are mine as well as yours. May God forgive you the sins committed in their name! And may He forgive me for ever having believed in them....”

With one darting stride Sir Maurice had his hand sharply on her shoulder, that leather shoulder. And at that moment, when she had seemed at her strongest, her eyes seemed to flutter from his unsmiling face. Her eyes were flooded with gentleness, and they seemed to flutter, to want to fly from that stern, handsome face. Yet Sir Maurice’s eyes were curiously kind. Perhaps that was why she had suddenly wilted. She hated him so, and his eyes were curiously kind. That was a clever man, Sir Maurice. Then, in a second, with an effort she superbly hid from our eyes, she was calm again. Always she must meet a man on his own ground.

“Iris,” Sir Maurice said quietly, his hand on her shoulder, “I am sorry I caused you unhappiness when you were a child. I admit I wanted a different alliance for Napier. And you must admit, child, that the March blood is not a very encouraging prospect for a father. But I am sincerely sorry I was unkind to you. But you must see, Iris, that yours was an unusual case. You were mature at eighteen, but I could realise neither that nor the depth of your feelings. Really, child, you mustn’t blame me too much. We can’t always tell when a boy and girl friendship is serious----”

“Maurice, why do you lie? I didn’t think you would lie to-night. You knew very well that it was serious. That was why you made Napier promise never to see me again. And your son kept his promise.”

“But why didn’t you come and tell me about it frankly, Iris? I had other plans for Napier, yes, but apart from that I was always your friend. You should have come and told me about it----”

“Oh, I was proud then! As I am not proud now....”

“What!” We started at the odd snap in Guy’s voice. “What, Iris?” And he laughed, desperately, helplessly. Guy! “Iris, that’s the first lie I’ve ever known pass your lips. Why, you’re as proud as an archangel!” We stared at him, somehow staggered by him, as he suddenly strode forward, the fair, slender giant. “Just a moment, Maurice,” said he, and bent down and kissed Iris’s cheek.

“Oh!”

This moment I can hear that despairing cry. “Oh!”

And then she tried to catch back her cry, she sobbed: “Judas!”

Guy had caught her as she started back from him like a frightened animal. “Judas nothing,” he murmured. Her face streamed with tears. Guy held her, his eyes strangely sad. “Judas nothing, my Iris,” he murmured. “You’ve won, girl. Go away and play at your lovely game of love. You’ve got me again, as you had when you were a child. I must say I like some one who really loves and really hates. I’m proud of you, Iris.”

Somehow, somehow, as Guy held her, Iris’s eyes looked through the mist towards me, and I moved my lips to make two words: Saint George. Somewhere in the mist she smiled....

She whispered: “Unfair, unfair, unfair! Guy, to kiss me like that, sweet, forgiving Guy! Oh, unfair, unfair, unfair! And I was so sure I wouldn’t cry to-night....”

Sir Maurice was fidgeting with the black ebony paper-knife. Hilary said “hm” and blew his nose. It was very funny now that it was Sir Maurice who seemed to be alone. I was glad. Iris had at last been forced to retreat from that proud battlefield on which she met men on their own ground. She had made her one gesture of womanhood; and now it was Sir Maurice who stood alone. Clever Guy. He was looking towards the General, smiling....

“Maurice,” he smiled, “the girl’s right. You were rather a sickening ass....”

“My dear Guy,” said the General with a tremendous helplessness; and he smiled. “How on earth was I to know then that a boy and gir----”

“Oh, phut!” Guy smiled like a boy. “You don’t catch me interfering with any of my boy’s friendships, I can tell you. Not that I’ve ever really thought about these things before. One just goes driving along never giving these things a thought until one day we all go off the deep end just because we never have given them a thought. I fancy Hilary’s right about this father and child business. I mean, people have been having sons, I suppose, since the year one, and the relation between them is still a mess. In this century, for instance, all we people have been bucking no end about being brotherly with our sons, as though being a fat-headed brother was any good if you don’t understand what the cub is driving at. I just thought of that this very moment. For instance, my boy told me the other day that Kipling wrote true-blue miracles calculated to increase the blood-pressure in men who were too old to fight. I gave him a thrashing with the gloves for his infernal cheek, especially as he must have got it out of some book, for the boy hasn’t what you could call a brain, which is just as well, for it will keep him from going over to Labour. But, after all, our cubs can’t make more of a mess of everything than we and our fathers have done. That’s the point to hang on to.”

“Good God, man!” snapped Hilary. “I’ve been saying that to you for twenty years, and you’ve----”

“That’s right, Hilary,” Guy grinned. “But you’ve got a way of saying things....”

Iris was looking from one to the other of us. It was as though she was in a dream, looking at faces in a dream. Soft she was now, soft and white and small. And her eyes were clouds of blue mist. She stared at Sir Maurice, who stood fidgeting with the paper-knife. “Maurice,” she whispered, “good-bye.”

Sharply he looked up from the paper-knife. He flipped the paper-knife on to the card-table. Then I saw that Sir Maurice hated his ancient enemy.

“Good-bye, Iris,” he said. “But you must not expect me to wish you happiness. You have taken from me my only son.”

“Maurice,” she said desperately, “isn’t that special pleading? Haven’t you any pity, any understanding, of what I have been through?”

“Understanding! Yes, I have understanding, Iris. But I can’t let it stretch across the wide gulf that should separate you from my son.”

“But you made the gulf, Maurice! You, you!” She seemed passionately to want his understanding now!

“I!” cried Sir Maurice. “Good God, woman, I merely parted a boy and a girl. But you could have found each other again--if you hadn’t been you! _I_ made the gulf! Iris, did I murder Boy Fenwick!”

“Maurice, you take that back!”

“Hilary, never mind.” It was a faint, husky whisper. “Just don’t mind, Hilary.” She was staring at Sir Maurice as at a snake. She was calm. “Did you say murder, Sir Maurice? Murder?”

Sir Maurice made the most helpless gesture. He looked very old. “I apologise, Iris, I apologise! I take it back completely. I was carried away. I apologise, child. Of course, murder was much too strong----”

“Too strong?” Guy echoed softly. “If you ask me, sir, it was so damned strong that it’s a wonder to me that it hasn’t blown us all out of the house.”

“I have apologised, Guy!” snapped Sir Maurice.

Iris was looking at me. She seemed lost in some thought, she was very still. Her lips said: “Dear, take me away.”

Sir Maurice darted for his paper-knife, fumbled among the cards for it, got it, rapped out: “Just one moment, Iris. I didn’t mean to say that. You must see that. I apologise sincerely.”

“I cannot hear your apology, Maurice. Because of that gulf.”

“I never thought of saying that,” Guy murmured. “Damn!”

“Just a moment, just a moment!” the General waved the paper-knife fretfully. “Ever since Napier came to see me this morning I have been thinking of these things. I saw Venice this afternoon. She is mad, I think, or enchanted. She believes in your love for Napier. I can only see the helpless ruin you have made of my son. And you say you love him! Let’s forget if we can all the other men you have ‘loved.’ Just take this one fact. Not two years after parting from Napier for good, which you say broke your heart, you marry Boy Fenwick. And when Boy Fenwick died you yourself said he had died ‘for purity.’ What did that mean if not that even before you married him ... you yourself, I say, said that he had died ‘for purity’!”

“For hell, sir! That was why Boy Fenwick died!”

“Napier!” There was a long, long silence. “Napier!” Iris whispered frantically. “My darling, why are you here!”

“To get you....” Napier’s voice trembled pitifully. He controlled it by whispering. “To get you from these ... men!”

“Steady, Naps!” Guy murmured. “We began the evening by bucking about being civilised.”

Again, as in the obscure silence of the Paris night, the white face, the lost eyes ... facing us from the middle French-window.

“Napier!” Iris pleaded. She seemed to be pleading against something which only she could see in those two dark ruins of eyes. And they made ruins of all, those eyes, but saw only one of us. And behind his shoulder, in the garden, pale, wide-eyed, steady as a judgment, stood Venice....

“Good God, man!” Sir Maurice rapped out. “Why bring Venice into this!”

“He didn’t. I came.” And Venice smiled in a sort of way.

Napier said in a scarcely audible voice: “Let Venice alone. I think she is my only friend.” As he stepped into the room Iris made a step towards him, two, three. Her eyes were dilated, beseeching. But never once, since the shock of his first words had turned us to the windows, had he taken his eyes from his father. The dark, fevered, lost eyes. He was passing Iris. She snatched at his arm, pulled at him. “Napier, don’t, don’t. Napier, please, my sweet! Venice, for pity’s sake stop him. You don’t _know_ what he’s going to say!”

The thin white fingers of the so naked right hand were buried round the black-covered arm, holding him in his stride; but still Napier looked only at his father. His face was so white that we all looked red and swollen. But Sir Maurice was not put out by his son’s fixed stare. He had his black ebony paper-knife.

“Well, Naps? What does this mean?”

Iris cried: “Napier!” Then she turned passionately to Venice. “Don’t you see, Venice! He doesn’t know what he’s saying!”

“It means, sir,” Napier said quietly, “that if you weren’t my father I would call you a cad.”

“Don’t!” Hilary snapped. “Hm. Run away now, all of you. Together or separate. Just run away.”

Iris pulled at Napier’s arm. He did not see her. He said very quietly, his voice imperceptibly trembling: “Venice and I called after dinner at Montpellier Square. Venice wished to say good-bye to Iris. What is between Iris and Venice is their business. They make me feel a lout, they make you look like.... We found Mrs. Oden upset. She said Iris had come here, and....” His voice broke, and he passed a hand over his mouth as though to steady it. He scowled.

Venice, still by the window, was wearing a leathercoat like Iris’s, but it looked much newer and lighter. She had her hands dug deep into the pockets. Iris cried: “Venice, for pity’s sake help me make Napier come away! Oh, you don’t understand! He’s no idea what he’s saying!”

For the first time Napier took his eyes from his father. His mouth twitched funnily, and he scowled. “Yes, I have, Iris. But I want to clear up this business once and for all. It’s gone on long enough, this--this Boy Fenwick business. What?”

“But, Napier, you promised!”

He scowled. “I don’t care, Iris. I’m awfully tired of all these pretences. It can’t ... it can’t go on, this slandering of you. It can’t. I can’t bear it. And the first thing I hear as I come into this room is my father chucking that slime at you---”

“Napier, don’t you see that it’s me you hurt, not them! You hurt me deeply, Napier. Listen to me, my dear, listen!”

But Napier seemed able to hear nothing, to see no one but his father. Again he put his hand to his mouth to stop it twitching. Venice, a flame in a leather jacket, suddenly threw an arm round Iris. “Darling, darling, _darling_! How dared you come here! But how dared you! Oh!” she stamped her foot, “these beasts of men, these beasts, beasts!”

“Venice,” Guy murmured, “take these two children of yours away at once. Go along now.”

Napier started at Guy’s voice. He had admired and worshipped Guy always. Guy smiled faintly, helplessly, was about to say something when Napier said bitterly: “Guy, I know it wasn’t your idea to bring Iris down here and throw that mud at her. I know that----”

“It was mine,” Sir Maurice rapped out with the paper-knife. “And it’s over now. You may go, Napier. I am asking you to go, boy! And you, Iris March. You and I, Napier, must part from to-night. For some time, at least. You will prefer that, too. You have every right to be angry with me, according to your lights. I gambled--for your future, boy--and I have lost. I am not sorry to have tried. I am sorry to have lost. Now you may be as angry as you like--but go!”

Napier’s voice trembled: “Before I go, sir, I’d like to say----”

“Naps, enough of this!” Guy snapped. “The more we talk the worse we make it. Go along, for God’s sake.”

Napier shouted: “I will not go!”