Chapter THREE: I

Smallwood was one of a type more commonly found at a university than at a public school; in fact it was due to his decision not to go to the former that he had stayed so long at Millstead. He was nineteen years old, and when he left he would enter his father's office in the City. The disciplinary problems of dealing with him and others of his type bristled with awkwardness, especially for a Master so young as Speed; the difficulty was enhanced by the fact that Smallwood, having stayed at Millstead long enough to achieve all athletic distinctions merely by inevitability, was a power in the school of considerable magnitude. Personally, he was popular; he was in no sense a bully; he was a kindly and certainly not too strict prefect; his disposition was friendly and easy-going. But for the unfortunate clash at the beginning of the term Speed might have found in him a powerful ally instead of a sinister enemy. One quality Smallwood possessed above all others--vanity; and Speed, having affronted that vanity, could count on a more virulent enmity than Smallwood's lackadaisical temperament was ordinarily capable of.

The error lay, of course, in the system which allowed Smallwood to stay at Millstead so long. Smallwood at nineteen was distinctly and quite naturally a man, not a boy; and whatever in him seemed unnatural was forced on him by the Millstead atmosphere. There was nothing at all surprising in his study-walls being covered with photographs of women and amorous prints obtained from French magazines. Nor was it surprising that he was that very usual combination--the athlete and the dandy, that his bathroom was a boudoir of pastes and oils and cosmetics, and that, with his natural good looks, he should have the reputation of being a lady-killer. Compelled by the restraints of Millstead life to a resignation of this branch of his activities during term-time, he found partial solace in winking at the less unattractive of the school-servants (who, it was reported, were chosen by the matron on the score of ugliness), and in relating to his friends lurid stories of his adventures in London during the vacations. He had had, for a nineteen-year-old, the most amazing experiences, and sometimes the more innocuous of these percolated, by heaven knows what devious channels, to the amused ears of the Masters' Common-Room. The Masters as a whole, it should be noted, liked Smallwood, because, with a little flattery and smoothing-down, they could always cajole him into agreement with them. Titivate his vanity and he was Samson shorn of his locks.

Now the masters, for various reasons, did not like Speed so much in his second term as they had done in his first. Like all bodies of averagely tolerant men they tended to be kindly to newcomers, and Speed, young, quiet, modest, and rather attractively nervous, had won more of their hearts than some of them afterwards cared to remember. The fact that his father was a titled man and that Speed never talked about it, was bound to impress a group of men who, by the unalterable circumstances of their lives, were compelled to spend a large portion of their time in cultivating an attitude of snobbery. But in his second term Speed found them not so friendly. That was to be expected in any case, for while much may be forgiven a man during his first probationary term, his second is one in which he must prepare to be judged by stricter standards. Besides the normal hardening of judgment, Speed was affected by another even more serious circumstance. He had committed the unpardonable offence of being too successful. Secretly, more than half the staff were acutely jealous of him. Even those who were entirely ineligible for the post at Lavery's, and would not have accepted it if it had been offered them, were yet conscious of some subtle personal chagrin in seeing Speed, after his first term, step into a place of such power and dignity. They had the feeling that the whole business had been done discreditably behind their backs, although, of course, the Masters had no right, either virtual or technical, to be consulted in the matter of appointments. Yet when they arrived at Millstead at the beginning of the term and learned that Speed, their junior by ever so many years, had married the Head's daughter during the vacation and had been forthwith appointed to the mastership of Lavery's, they could not forbear an instant sensation of ruefulness which developed later into more or less open antagonism. Not all the talk about the desirability of young married housemasters could dispel that curious feeling of having been slighted.

Secretly, no doubt, they hoped that Lavery's would be too much for Speed. And on the occasion of the row between Speed and Smallwood they sympathised with the latter, regarding him as the victim of Speed's monstrous and aggressive self-assertion. The circumstance that Speed took few meals now in the Masters' Common-Room prevented the legend of his self-assertiveness from being effectively smashed; as term progressed and as Speed's eager and pertinacious enthusiasm about the concert became apparent, the legend rather grew than diminished. Clanwell, alone, perhaps, of all the staff, still thought of Speed without feelings of jealousy, and that was rather because he regarded him as one of his elder boys, to be looked after and advised when necessary. He formed the habit of inviting Speed into his room to coffee once or twice a week, and on these occasions he gave the young man many hints drawn from his full-blooded, though rather facile, philosophy.

At the conclusion of one of these evening confabulations he caught hold of Speed's arm as the latter was going out by the door and said: "I say, Speed,--just before you go--there's a little matter I've been wondering all night whether I'd mention to you or not. I hope you won't be offended. I'm the last man to go round making trouble or telling tales, and I'm aware that I'm risking your friendship if I say what I have in mind."

"You won't do that," said Speed. "Say what you want to say." He stared at Clanwell nervously, for at a call such as this a cloud of vague apprehensions would swarm round and over him, filling the future with dark dreads.

"It's about your wife," said Clanwell. "I'm not going to say much. It isn't anything to worry about, I daresay. Perhaps it doesn't justify my mentioning it to you. Your wife..."

"Well?"

"I should--keep an eye on her, if I were you. She's young, Speed, remember. She's--"

"What do you mean--keep an eye on her? What should I keep an eye on her for?"

"I told you, Speed, I wasn't going to say much. You mustn't imagine yourself on the verge of a scandal--I don't suppose there's anything really the matter at all. Only, as I was saying, she's young, and she--she's apt to do unwise things. Once or twice lately, while you've been out, she's had Smallwood in to tea."

"Smallwood!--Alone?"

"Yes, alone."

Speed blushed furiously and was silent. A sudden new feeling, which he diagnosed as jealousy, swept across him; followed by a further series of feelings which were no more than various forms of annoyance and exacerbation. He clenched his fists and gave a slight shrug of his shoulders.

"How do you know all this?" he queried, in the staccato bark that was so accurate a register of his temper.

"Smallwood isn't the fellow to keep such an affair secret," replied Clanwell. "But don't, Speed, go and do anything rash. If I were you I should go back and--"

"I shan't do anything rash," interrupted Speed, curtly. "You needn't worry. Good-night.... I suppose I ought to thank you for your kindness in telling me what you have."

When he had gone he regretted that final remark. It was, he decided, uselessly and pointlessly cynical.

II

It was a pity, perhaps, that in his present mood he went straight back to Lavery's and to Helen. He found her sitting, as usual, by the fire when he entered; he made no remark, but came and sat opposite to her. Neither of them spoke for a few moments. That was not unusual for them, for Helen had frequent fits of taciturnity, and Speed, becoming familiar with them, found himself adopting similar habits. After, however, a short space of silence, he broke it by saying: "Helen, do you mind if we have a serious talk for a little while."

She looked up and said, quietly: "Where have you been?"

"Clanwell's," he replied, and as soon as he had done so he realised that she would easily guess who had informed him. A pity that he had answered her so readily.

"What do you want to ask me?"

He said, rather loudly, as always when he was nervous: "Helen, I'm going to be quite straightforward. No beating about the bush, you understand?--You've had Smallwood in here to tea lately, while I've been out."

"Well?" Her voice, irritatingly soft, just as his own was irritatingly loud, contained a mixture of surprise and mockery. "And what if I have?"

He gripped the arms of the wicker-chair with his fists, causing a creaking sound that seemed additionally to discompose him. "Helen, you can't do it, that's all. You mustn't. It won't do.... It..."

Suddenly she was talking at him, slowly and softly at first, then in a rising, gathering, tempestuous torrent; her eyes, lit by the firelight, blazed through the tears in them. "Can't I? Mustn't I? You say it won't do? You can go out whenever and wherever you like, you can go out to Clanwell's in the evening, you can walk down to the town with Clare, you can have anybody you like in to tea, you choose your own friends, you live your own life--and then you actually dare to tell me I can't!--What is it to you if I make a friend of Smallwood?--Haven't I the right to make friends without your permission?--Haven't I the right to entertain _my_ friends in here as much as you have the right to entertain _your_ friends?--Kenneth, you think I'm a child, you call me a child, you treat me as a child. _That's_ what won't do. I'm a woman and I won't be domineered over. So now you know it."

Her passion made him suddenly icily cool; he was no longer the least bit nervous. He perceived, with calm intuition, that this was going to be their first quarrel.

"In the first place," he began quietly, "you must be fair to me. Surely, it is not extraordinary that I should go up to see Clanwell once or twice during the week. He's a colleague and a friend. Secondly, walking down into the town to see Clare home after rehearsals is a matter of common politeness, which you, I think, asked me particularly to do. And as for asking people in to tea, you have, as you say, as free a choice in that as I have, except when you do something absolutely unwise. Helen, I'm serious. Don't insist on this argument becoming a quarrel. If it does, it will be our first quarrel, remember."

"You think you can move me by talking like that!"

"My dear, I think nothing of the sort. I simply do not want to quarrel. I want you to see my point of view, and I'm equally anxious to see yours. With regard to this Smallwood business, you must, if you think a little, realise that in a place like Millstead you can't behave absolutely without regard for conventions. Smallwood, remember, is nearly your own age. You see what I mean?"

"You mean that I'm not to be trusted with any man nearly my own age?"

"No, I don't mean that. The thought that there could be anything in the least discreditable in the friendship between Smallwood and you never once crossed my mind. I know, of course, that it is perfectly honest and above-board. Don't please, put my attitude down to mere jealousy. I'm not in the least jealous."

What surprised him more than anything else in this amazing chain of circumstances, was that he was sitting there talking to her so calmly and deliberately, almost as if he were arguing an abstruse point in a court of law! Of this new cold self that was suddenly to the front he had had no former experience. And certainly it was true to say that at that moment there was not in him an atom of jealousy.

She seemed to shrivel up beneath the coldness of his argument. She said, doggedly: "I'm not going to give way, Kenneth."

They both looked at each other then, quite calmly and subconsciously a little awed, as if they could see suddenly the brink on which they were standing.

"Helen, I don't want to domineer over you at all. I want you to be as free to do what you like as I am. But there are some things, which, for my sake and for the sake of the position I hold here, you ought not to do. And having Smallwood here alone when I am away is one of those things."

"I don't agree. I have as much right to make a friend of Smallwood as you have to make a friend of--say Clare!"

The mention of Clare shifted him swiftly out of his cool, calculating mood and back into the mood which had possessed him when he first came into the room. "Not at all," he replied, sharply. "The cases are totally different. Smallwood is a boy--a boy in my House. That makes all the difference."

"I don't see that it makes any difference."

"Good heavens, Helen!--You don't see? Don't you realise the sort of talk that is getting about? Doesn't it occur to you that Smallwood will chatter about this all over the school and make out that he's conducting a clandestine flirtation with you? Don't you see how it will undermine all the discipline of the House--will make people laugh at me when my back's turned--will--"

"And I'm to give up my freedom just to stop people from laughing at you, am I?"

"Helen, _why_ can't you see my point of view? Would you like to see me a failure at Lavery's? Wouldn't you feel hurt to hear everybody sniggering about me?"

"I should feel hurt to think that you could only succeed at Lavery's by taking away my freedom."

"Helen, marriage isn't freedom. It's partnership. I can't do what I like. Neither can you."

"I can try, though."

"Yes, and you can succeed in making my life at Millstead unendurable."

She cried fiercely: "I won't talk about it any longer, Kenneth. We don't agree and apparently we shan't, however long we argue. I still think I've a right to ask Smallwood in to tea if I want to."

"And I still think you haven't."

"Very well, then--" with a laugh--"that's a deadlock, isn't it?"

He stared at the fire silently for some moments, then rose, and came to the back of her chair. Something in her attitude seemed to him blindingly, achingly pathetic; the tears rushed to his eyes; he felt he had been cruel to her. One part of him urged him to have pity on her, not to let her suffer, to give way, at all costs, rather than bring shadows over her life; to appeal, passionately and perhaps sentimentally, that she would, for his sake, if she loved him, make his task at Lavery's no harder than it need be. The other part of him said: No, you have said what is perfectly fair and true; you have nothing at all to apologise for. If you apologise you will only weaken your position for ever afterwards.

In the end the two conflicting parts of him effected a compromise. He said, good-humouredly, almost gaily, to her: "Yes, Helen, I'm afraid it is a deadlock. But that's no reason why it should be a quarrel. After all, we ought to be able to disagree without quarrelling. Now, let's allow the matter to drop, eh? Eh, Helen? Smile at me, Helen!"

But instead of smiling, she burst into sudden passionate sobbing. Her head dropped heavily into her hands and all her hair, loosened by the fall, dispersed itself over her hands and cheeks in an attitude of terrific despair. On Speed the effect of it was as that of a knife cutting him in two. He could not bear to see her misery, evoked by something said or done, however justifiably, by him; pity swelled over him in a warm, aching tide; he stooped to her and put a hand hesitatingly on her shoulder. He was almost afraid to touch her, and when, at the first sensation of his hand, she drew away hurriedly, he crept back also as if he were terrified by her. Then gradually he came near her again and told her, with his emotion making his voice gruff, that he was sorry. He had treated her unkindly and oh--he was _so_ sorry. He could not bear to see her cry. It hurt him.... Dear, darling Helen, would she forgive him? If she would only forgive him she could have Smallwood in to tea every day if she wished, and damn what anybody said about it! Helen, Helen....

Yet the other part of him, submerged, perhaps, but by no means silent, still urged: You haven't treated her unkindly, and you know you haven't. You have nothing to apologise for at all. And if she does keep on inviting Smallwood in you'll have the same row with her again, sooner or later.

"Helen, _dear_ Helen--_do_ answer me!--Don't cry like that--I can't bear it!--Answer me, Helen, answer me!"

Then she raised her head and put her arms out to him and kissed him with fierce passion, so that she almost hurt his neck. Even then she did not, for a moment, answer, but he did not mind, because he knew now that she had forgiven him. And strangely enough, in that moment of passionate embrace, there returned to him a feeling of crude, rudimentary jealousy; he felt that for the future he would, as Clanwell had advised him, have to keep an eye on her to make sure that none of this high, mountainous love escaped from within the four walls of his own house. He felt suddenly greedy, physically greedy; the thought, even instantly contradicted, of half-amorous episodes between her and Smallwood affected him with an insurgent bitterness which made the future heavy with foreboding.

She whispered to him that she had been very silly and that she wouldn't have Smallwood in again if he wished her not to.

Even amidst his joy at her submission, the word "silly" struck him as an absurdly inadequate word to apply to her attitude.

He said, deliberately against his will: "Helen, darling, it was I who was silly. Have Smallwood in as much as you like. I don't want to interfere with your happiness."

He expected her then to protest that she had no real desire to have Smallwood in, and when she failed to protest, he was disappointed. The fear came to him that perhaps Smallwood did attract her, being so good-looking, and that his granting her full permission to see him would give that attraction a chance to develop. Jealousy once again stormed at him.

But how sweet the reconciliation, after all! For concentrated loveliness nothing in his life could equal the magic of that first hour with her after she had ceased crying. It was moonlight outside and about midnight they leaned for a moment out of the window with the icy wind stinging their cheeks. Millstead asleep in the pallor, took on the semblance of his own mood and seemed tremulous with delight. Somewhere, too, amidst the dreaming loveliness of the moon-washed roofs and turrets, there was a touch of something that was just a little exquisitely sad, and that too, faint, yet quite perceptible, was in his own mood.

III

There came the concert in the first week of December. No one, not even those of the Common-Room who were least cordially disposed to him, could deny that Speed had worked indefatigably and that his efforts deserved success. Yet the success, merited though it was, was hardly likely to increase his popularity among those inclined to be jealous of him.

Briskly energetic and full of high spirits throughout all the rehearsals, and most energetic of all on the actual evening of the performance, he yet felt, when all was over and he knew that the affair had been a success, the onrush of a wave of acute depression. He had, no doubt, been working too hard, and this was the natural reaction of nerves. It was a cold night with hardly any wind, and during the evening a thick fog had drifted up from the fenlands, so that there was much excited talk among the visitors about the difficulties of getting to their homes. Nothing was to be seen more than five or six yards ahead, and there was the prospect that as the night advanced the fog would become worse. The Millstead boys, enjoying the novelty, were scampering across the forbidden quadrangle, revelling in the delightful risk of being caught and in the still more delightful possibility of knocking over, by accident, some one or other of the Masters. Speed, standing on the top step of the flight leading down from the Big Hall, gazed into the dense inky-black cloisters where two faint pin-pricks of light indicated lamps no more than a few yards away. He felt acutely miserable, and he could not think why. In a way, he was sorry that the bustle of rehearsals, to which he had become quite accustomed, was all finished with; but surely that was hardly a sufficient reason for feeling miserable? Hearing the boyish cries from across the quadrangle he suddenly felt that he was old, and that he wished he were young again, as young as the youngest of the boys at Millstead.

Since the quarrel about Smallwood he and Helen had got on tolerably well together. She had not asked Smallwood in to tea again, and he judged that she did not intend to, though to save her dignity she would still persist in her right to do so whenever she wished. The arrangement was quite satisfactory to him. But, despite the settlement of that affair, their relationship had suddenly become a thing of fierce, alternating contrasts. They were either terrifically happy or else desperately miserable. The atmosphere, when he came into Lavery's after an absence of even a quarter of an hour, might either be dull and glowering or else radiant with joy. He could never guess which it would be, and he could never discover reasons for whichever atmosphere he encountered. But invariably he was forced into responding; if Helen were moody and silent he also remained quiet, even if his inclinations were to go to the piano and sing comic songs. And if Helen were bright and joyful he forced himself to boisterousness, no matter what press of gravity was upon him. He sometimes found himself stopping short on his own threshold, frightened to enter lest Helen's mood, vastly different from his own, might drag him up or down too disconcertingly. Even their times of happiness, more wonderful now than ever, were drug-like in possessing after-effects which projected themselves backward in a tide of sweet melancholy that suffused everything. He knew that he loved her more passionately than ever, and he knew also that the beauty of it was mysteriously impregnated with sadness.

She stole up to him now in the fog, dainty and pretty in her heavy fur cloak. She put a hand on his sleeve; evidently this was one of her happy moods.

"Oh, Kenneth--_what_ a fog! Aren't you glad everything's all over? It went off wonderfully, didn't it? Do you think the Rayners will be able to get home all right--they live out at Deepersdale, you know?"

Replying to the last of her queries, he said: "Oh yes, I don't think it's quite bad enough to stop them altogether."

Then after a pause she went on: "Clare's just putting her things on and I told her to meet you here. You'll see her home, won't you?"

He wondered in a vague kind of way why Helen was so desperately anxious that he should take Clare on her way home, but he was far too exhausted mentally to give the matter sustained excogitation. It seemed to him that Helen suddenly vanished, that he waited hours in the fog, and that Clare appeared mysteriously by his side, speaking to him in a voice that was full of sharp, recuperative magic. "My dear man, aren't you going to put your coat on?" Then he deliberately laughed and said: "Heavens, yes, I'd forgotten--just a minute if you don't mind waiting!"

He groped his way back into the hall and to the alcove where he had laid his coat and hat. The yellow light blurred his eyes with a film of half-blindness; phantasies of doubt and dread enveloped him; he felt, with that almost barometric instinct that he possessed, that things momentous and incalculable were looming in the future. This Millstead that had seemed to him so bright and lovely was now heavy with dark mysterious menace; as he walked back across the hall through the long avenues of disturbed chairs it occurred to him suddenly that perhaps this foreboding that was hovering about him was not mental at all, but physical; that he had overworked himself and was going to be ill. Perhaps, even, he was ill already. He had a curious desire that someone should confirm him in this supposition; when Clare, meeting him at the doorway, said: "You're looking thoroughly tired out Mr. Speed," he smiled and answered, with a touch of thankfulness: "I'm feeling, perhaps, a little that way."

"Then," said Clare, immediately, "please don't trouble to see me home. I can quite easily find my own way, I assure you. You go back to Lavery's and get straight off to bed."

The thought, thus presented to him, of foregoing this walk into the town with her, sent a sharp flush into his cheeks and pulled down the hovering gloom almost on to his eyes; he knew then, more acutely than he had ever guessed before, that he was desiring Clare's company in a way that was a good deal more than casual. The realisation surprised him just a little at first, and then surprised him a great deal because at first it had surprised him only a little.

"I'd rather come with you if you don't mind," he said. "The walk will do me good."

"What, _this_ weather!" she exclaimed softly, and then laughed a sharp, instant laugh.

That laugh galvanised him into determination. "I'm coming anyway," he said quietly, and took her arm and led her away into the fog.

Out in the high road it was blacker and denser; the school railings, dripping with grimy moisture, provided the only sure clue to position. Half, at least, of Speed's energies were devoted to the task of not losing the way; with the other half he was unable to carry out much of the strange programme of conversation that had been gathering in his mind. For many days past he had been accumulating a store of things to say to her upon this memorable walk which, so far as he could judge, was bound to be the last; now, with the opportunity arrived, he said hardly anything at all. She chattered to him about music and Millstead and odd topics of slight importance; she pressed her scarf to her lips and the words came out curiously muffled and deep-toned, with the air of having incalculable issues depending on them. But he hardly answered her at all. And at last they reached Harrington's shop in the High Street, and she shook hands with him and told him to get back as quickly as he could and be off to bed. "And don't work so hard," were her last words to him, "or you'll be ill."

Thicker and blacker than ever was the fog on the way back to the school, and somehow, through what error he never discovered, he lost himself amongst the narrow, old fashioned streets in the centre of the town. He wandered about, as it seemed to him, for hours, creeping along walls and hoping to meet some passer-by who could direct him. Once he heard Millstead Parish Church beginning the chime of midnight, but it was from the direction he least expected. At last, after devious manœuvring, he discovered himself again on the main road up to the School, and this time with great care he managed to keep to the route. As he entered the main gateway he heard the school clock sounding the three-quarters. A quarter to one! All was silent at Lavery's. He rang the bell timorously. After a pause he heard footsteps approaching on the other side, but they seemed to him light and airy; the bolts were pushed back, not with Burton's customary noise, but softly, almost frightenedly.

He could see that it was Helen standing there in the porch, not Burton. She flashed an electric torch in his face and then at his feet so that he should see the step.

She said: "Come in quickly--don't let the fog in. You're awfully late, aren't you? I told Burton to go to bed. I didn't know you were going to stay at Clare's."

He answered: "I didn't stay at Clare's. I got lost in the fog on the way back."

"Lost!" she echoed, walking ahead of him down the corridor towards his sitting-room. The word echoed weirdly in the silence. "_Lost_, were you?--So that's why you were late?"

"That's why," he said.

He followed her into the tiny lamp-lit room, full of firelight that was somehow melancholy and not cheerful.

IV

She was silent. She sat in one of the chairs with her eyes looking straight into the fire; while he took off his coat and hat and drew up his own chair opposite to hers she neither moved nor spoke. It seemed to him as he watched her that the room grew redder and warmer and more melancholy; the flames lapped so noisily in the silence that he had for an instant the absurd fear that the scores of sleepers in the dormitories would be awakened. Then he heard, very faintly from above, what he imagined must be an especially loud snore; it made him smile. As he smiled he saw Helen's eyes turned suddenly upon him; he blushed as if caught in some guilty act. He said: "Can you hear somebody snoring up in the Senior dormitory?"

She stared at him curiously for a moment and then replied: "No, and neither can you. You said that to make conversation."

"I didn't!" he cried, with genuine indignation. "I distinctly heard it. That's what made me smile."

"And do you really think that the sound of anybody snoring in the Senior dormitory would reach us in here? Why, we never hear the maids in a morning and they make ever such a noise!"

"Yes, but then there are so many other noises to drown it. However, it may have been my imagination."

"Or it may have been your invention, eh?"

"I tell you, Helen, I _did_ think that I heard it! It _wasn't_ my invention. What reason on earth should I have for inventing it? Oh, well, anyway, it's such a trifling matter--it's not worth arguing about."

"Then let's stop arguing. You started it."

Silence again. The melancholy in the atmosphere was charged now with an added quality, something that weighed and threatened and was dangerous. He knew that Helen had something pressing on her mind, and that until she flung it off there would be no friendliness with her. And he wanted friendliness. He could not endure the torture of her bitter silences.

"Helen," he said, nervously eager, "Helen, there's something the matter. Tell me what it is."

"There's nothing the matter."

"Are you sure?"

"Quite sure."

"Then why are you so silent?"

"Because I would rather be silent than make conversation."

"That's sarcastic."

"Is it? If you think it is----"

"Helen, please be kind to me. If you go on as you are doing I'm sure I shall either cry or lose my temper. I'm tired to death after all the work of the concert and I simply can't bear this attitude of yours."

"Well, I can't change my attitude to please you."

"Apparently not."

"_Now_ who's sarcastic? Good heavens, do you think I've nothing to do but suit your mood when you come home tired at one o'clock in the morning--You spend half the night with some other woman and then when you come home, tired out, you expect me to soothe and make a fuss of you!"

"Helen, that's a lie! I walked straight home with Clare. You specially asked me to do that."

"I didn't specially ask you to stay out with her till one o'clock in the morning."

"I didn't stay with her till then. To begin with, it isn't one o'clock even yet.... Remember that the concert was over about eleven. I took Clare straight home and left her long before midnight. It wasn't my fault I lost my way in the fog."

"Nor mine either. But perhaps it was Clare's, eh?"

"Helen, I can't bear you to insinuate like that! Tell me frankly what you suspect, and then I'll answer frankly!"

"You wouldn't answer frankly. And that's why I can't tell you frankly."

"Well, I think it's scandalous----"

She interrupted him fiercely with: "Oh, yes, it's scandalous that I should dare to be annoyed when you give all your friendship to another woman and none to me, isn't it? It's scandalous that when you come home after seeing this other woman I shouldn't be perfectly happy and bright and ready to kiss and comfort you and wheedle you out of the misery you're in at having to leave her! You only want me for a comforter, and it's so scandalous when I don't feel in the humour to oblige, isn't it?"

"Helen, it's not true! My friendship belongs to you more than to----"

"Don't tell me lies just to calm me into suiting your mood. Do you think I haven't noticed that we haven't anything in common except that we love each other? We don't know what on earth to talk about when we're alone together. We just know how to bore each other and to torture each other with our love. Don't you realize the truth of that? Don't you find yourself eagerly looking forward to seeing Clare; Clare whom you can talk to and be friendly with; Clare who's your equal, perhaps your superior, in intellect? Lately, I've given you as many chances to see her as I could, because if you're going to tire of me I'd rather you do it quickly. But I'm sorry I can't promise to be always gay and amusing while it's going on. It may be scandalous that I can't, but it's the truth, anyway!"

"But, my dear Helen, what an extraordinary bundle of misunderstandings you've got hold of! Why----"

"Oh yes, you'd like to smooth me down and persuade me it's all my own misunderstanding, I daresay, as you've always been able to do! But the effect doesn't last for very long; sooner or later it all crops up again. It's no use, Kenneth. I'm not letting myself be angry, but I tell you it's not a bit of use. I'm sick to death of wanting from you what I can't get. I've tried hard to educate myself into being your equal, but it doesn't seem to make you value me any more. Possibly you like me best as a child; perhaps you wouldn't have married me if you'd known I was really a woman. Anyway, Kenneth, I can't help it. And there's another thing--I'm miserably jealous--of Clare. If you'd had a grain of ordinary sense you might have guessed it before now."

"My dear Helen----"

Then he stopped, seeing that she was staring at him fearlessly. She was different, somehow, from what she had ever been before; and this quarrel, if it could be called a quarrel, was also different both in size and texture. There was no anger in her; nothing but stormy sincerity and passionate outpouring of the truth. A new sensation overspread him; a thrill of surprised and detached admiration for her. If she were always like this, he thought--if she were always proud, passionate, and sincere--how splendidly she would take possession of him! For he wanted to belong to her, finally and utterly; he was anxious for any enslavement that should give him calm and absolute anchorage.

His admiration was quickly superseded by astonishment at her self-revelation.

"But Helen--" he gasped, leaning over the arm of his chair and putting his hand on her wrist, "Helen, I'd no idea! _Jealous_! You jealous of Clare! What on earth for? Clare's only an acquaintance! Why, you're a thousand times more to me than Clare ever is or could be!"

"Kenneth!" She drew her arm away from the touch of his hand with a gesture that was determined but not contemptuous. "Kenneth, I don't believe it. Perhaps you're not trying to deceive me; probably you're trying to deceive yourself and succeeding. Tell me, Kenneth, truthfully, don't you sometimes wish I were Clare when you're talking to me? When we're both alone together, when we're neither doing nor saying anything particular, don't you wish you could make me vanish suddenly and have Clare in my place, and--and--" bitterness crept into her voice here--"and call me back when you wanted the only gift of mine which you find satisfactory? You came back to-night, miserable, because you'd said good-bye to Clare, and because you couldn't see in the future any chances of meeting her as often as you've been able to do lately. You wanted--you're wanting it now--Clare's company and Clare's conversation and Clare's friendship. And because you can't have it you're willing to soothe yourself with my pretty little babyish ways, and when you find you can't have _them_ either you think it's scandalous! Kenneth, my dear, dear Kenneth, I'm not a baby any longer, even if I ever was one--I'm a woman now, and you don't like me as much. I can't help it. I can't help being tortured with jealousy all the time you're with Clare. I can't help wanting what Clare has of you more than I want what I have of you myself. I can't help--sometimes--hating her--loathing her!"

He was speechless now, made so by a curious dignity with which she spoke and the kindness to him that sounded in everything that she said. He was so tired and sorry. He leaned his head in his arms and sobbed. Some tragedy that had seemed to linger in the lamp-lit room ever since he had come into it out of the fog, was now about his head blinding and crushing him; all the world of Millstead, spread out in the panorama of days to come, appeared in a haze of forlorn melancholy. The love he had for Helen ached in him with a sadness that was deeper now than it had ever been.

And then, suddenly, she was all about him, kneeling beside him, stroking his hair, taking his hand and pressing it to her breast, crying softly and without words.

He whispered, indistinctly: "Helen, Helen, it's all right. Don't you worry, little Helen. I'm not quite well to-night, I think. It must be the strain of all that concert work.... But I'll be all right when I've had a rest for a little while.... Helen, darling, you mustn't cry about me like that!"

Then she said, proudly, though her voice still quivered: "I'm not worrying, dear. And you'll see Clare again soon, because I shall ask her to come here. You've got to choose between us, and Clare shall have a fair chance, anyway.... And now come to bed and sleep."

He gave her a smile that was more babyish than anything that she had ever been or done. And with her calm answering smile the sadness seemed somehow a little lifted.