Chapter XXVII

“I do not see them here; but after death, God knows I know the faces I shall see, Each one a murdered self, with low, last breath, ‘I am thyself—What hast thou done to me?’ ‘And I—and I—thyself’ (lo! each one saith), ‘And _thou_ thyself to all eternity!’”

ROSSETTI.

Reggie drove straight to David’s rooms; his thoughts were troubled but his purpose was clear. It was necessary to look after David. The clock chimed twelve as he reached his friend’s chambers and climbed the stairs. David’s rooms were some of the best in London, magnificently furnished; with large windows over-looking the park. As Reggie entered he saw his friend sitting in a big arm-chair, gazing stupidly before him.

“What the devil do you want?” he asked thickly, as he eyed the intruder.

“I want a smoke,” said Reggie, taking up a cigar and lighting it. A long pause followed.

“What did you do with her,” David asked finally.

“Took her to the hospital,” said Reggie, puffing at his cigar.

“And left her there?”

“And left her there.” David sank morosely into silence again. He was trying to clear his dulled and fettered faculties. Something had happened he knew, something, sad, shameful, terrible, but he could not for the life of him remember what. He was afraid to ask Reggie, for he was not sure that he wanted to find out. Reggie rang the bell. “Bring two cups of coffee, black,” he said to the man-servant.

“Do you think I’m drunk?” asked David with sudden fierceness, “for if you do I’ll kick you downstairs!”

“These are precious good cigars of yours, David. Where do you get ’em from?” Reggie asked coolly, knocking off some ashes into a tray.

“Best cigars in London,” said David. “Best cigars in the world!” he added with much force and gravity. When the man brought in the coffee, David fixed angry eyes upon his companion. Reggie drank his cup with much appreciation.

“Good coffee,” he said thoughtfully. David tossed his down thirstily.

“Best coffee in the world!” he exclaimed with fervour. A long uneasy silence followed. Reggie, watching him, saw David’s hands clench over the arms of his chair. The dulled look left his eyes and instead, knowledge, memory, and pain drove meaning into every line of his face. An almost passionate self-pity came over him, he turned to Reggie. “But I love her!” he cried, “I love her! I wouldn’t hurt a hair of her head! Daphne? Why I worship her! It couldn’t have been Daphne, tell me it was some other girl?”

“It was this cursed drink!” said his friend bitterly.

“Oh, curse it! curse it! curse it!” said David starting to his feet. “And give me some more brandy, old boy! I must have some brandy! I can’t think! I can’t——”

“Hold on!” said Reggie, “you don’t want any more, David.”

“I tell you I must have it! I shall go mad! Oh, damn you, let me have some brandy!” Reggie pushed him back into his chair, David was trembling all over like a frightened child.

“Not while I’m here, old man!” said Reggie firmly. David struggled for awhile and then gave in.

“I could ring for my man to turn you out,” he said sullenly.

“You could, but you’re not going to!” said Reggie. They eyed each other for a while. Then David burst out angrily as if his friend were accusing him.

“After all, what’s the fuss about? I may have taken a glass too much, but a man can’t always be on his guard. It will never happen again, I’ve learnt my lesson now. I’ll write and explain, and as for the rest——”

“I don’t wish to hear about the rest,” said Reggie rather sharply.

“Well, I only tried to kiss her!” muttered David defensively, “I swear I never meant any harm! I may have been a little rough, but, good God! a man’s made out of flesh and blood, and that old hag your mother——” he stopped short. “I’m sorry,” he added in apology, “she told me she had seen that surgeon kiss her—the night she promised to be my wife, and we were engaged, a man ought to be allowed to kiss the girl he’s engaged to!” Reggie made no answer, and David’s mood changed. His friend’s silence seemed to show him more plainly than anything the actual case. He strung himself together, and the words that came from him seemed wrung out of his soul. “God forgive me,” he said, “she trusted me!” It was probably the first time in his life that he looked at what happened to him, from the aspect of how it affected somebody else, and it could not last more than a minute. “She will never look at me again,” he said, and he covered his face with his hands.

Reggie’s thoughts became fixed on some words he had seen somewhere, “He found no place for repentance though he sought it carefully and with tears.” He had vaguely felt this an injustice, he remembered, now he knew that it was a simple fact. There is more than one way of forfeiting a birth-right, but self-indulgence lies at the root of them all. Esau could find no place for repentance because he had lost the faculty for the search, and Reggie, looking at the wreck of the handsome youth beside him, felt that the inexorable answer to selfish luxury, is a ruined self. David was not a bad man, he had, indeed, not one wholly cruel impulse in him; he was a good fellow, only he was not quite good enough. There are few characters sufficiently strong to retain their true balance, in an atmosphere of comfort surrounded by attainable pleasures, and pleasant-looking sins, of a sort too, which people term “very natural.” David’s sins were no more than this at first, until they became only too natural, and then he ceased to call them sins.

Reggie, looking at him, had a growing consciousness that the happy, healthy existence which he had hitherto enjoyed, might not really be life at all. He did not go much farther than this, but he felt dissatisfied, and it is a great deal to feel dissatisfied. Three o’clock struck, and he rose to his feet.

“David, old man,” he said, “don’t you think you’d better get to bed?” David looked up at him with haggard face, and blank, miserable eyes.

“Tell her to forgive me!” he said. “I can’t write to her and ask her not to think about me any more. I don’t think she’ll find it difficult!” he added bitterly. “I’ll just sit here and rest for a few minutes longer, then I’ll turn in.”

Reggie nodded and left him, but he took away the brandy bottle, and said a few words to the valet downstairs. He was a devoted man and understood his master quite well. The moment the door shut David sprang to his feet and, crossing the room with quick, noiseless steps, he opened a little cupboard in the wall. Reggie had taken away the brandy, but this was gin. Gin would do just as well, anything would do just as well that would shut out Daphne’s face, and that startled cry of hers “David—you’re drunk!”

Dawn rose over the great weary city. The streets that had been practically hidden by the pitying darkness of the night awoke afresh to “The shame that loads the intolerable day.”

Lady Cheston came down late to breakfast; she eyed her son’s face a little doubtfully. There were stern lines round his mouth which reminded her a little unpleasantly of his father. Life had been made easier for Lady Cheston since her husband’s death.

“I should like a few words with you, mother,” said Reggie, at last pushing away an untasted breakfast.

“Then I suppose the girls had better go away?” said Lady Cheston resignedly.

“Very much better,” said Reggie. The twins, who were most obliging young persons, smiled pleasantly and left the room. “I have been forced to cut down your allowance,” said her son gravely, “you will now only have the sum my father left you, the rest I must use for other purposes.”

His mother gasped. He had found out and she had been so careful, and he was going to do what he had said. She was a plucky woman, and besides, she wanted to know if it had been worth while, a great deal depended upon that.

“Why?” she asked bluntly.

“Because I find that you have interfered with David’s engagement.”

“They were both at the theatre last night,” said Lady Cheston, “which doesn’t look like a break.”

“Nevertheless, there has been one,” said Reggie. Lady Cheston’s eyes fell on her plate, she did not wish her son to see them at that moment, they were too happy. She began to crumble her bread.

“I do not see why you should put it down to my interference,” she said. “They were never suited to each other, and now they have found it out.”

“And you have helped them to find out,” said Reggie. Lady Cheston shrugged her shoulders.

“It would be no use my telling you that I didn’t,” she said, “because you wouldn’t believe me.”

“Besides, it is not true,” said Reggie quietly. Lady Cheston laughed.

“Where’s the _Field_?” she asked, “I must get a Scotch terrier!” Her son handed her the paper, and left the room. Her hand trembled too much to hold it. She went over to a mirror and studied her face. It was true she was forty, but she was a very fine-looking woman still.

“Oh! David! David! David!” she whispered. She knew that for the moment he must hate her, but there would be other moments. In the worst things that she fancied coming up between them, she could never have imagined that he had called her, to her own son, “That cursed old hag!” If she had known of it she would never have understood Reggie’s not repeating it to her, and she would have felt just the same to David.