Chapter IX: Part VI: I (2)

There was a burst of welcome, and then Lady Cheyne entered the workroom much in the same way as a broad-beamed cargo-boat floats into harbor. And then followed another surprise for Mrs. Rumbold, who was in for a day of surprises, it appeared. "Well, you dear thing, here you are. Punctual to the minute, as I always am. How are you, and where have you been, and why haven't you run in to see me, and how sweet you look." And the kind and exuberant little lady, whose amazing body seemed to require more than one dressmaker to cover it up, drew Lola warmly to her side and kissed her. It is true that she had forgotten her name again. She saw so many people so often who had such weird and unpronounceable names that she never even made an effort to remember any of them. But that golden head and those wide-apart eyes reminded her of the conversation over the telephone, brought back that evening at her house and linked them with the tall figure of the one-armed soldier,--her dear friend Peter something, so good looking, _such_ a darling, but _so_ unkind, never coming near her. "Extraordinary enough, I was thinking of you only a few nights ago. I was dining at the Savoy and the little crowd who were with me spoke of you. They had been with me the night I met you there and were _so_ interested. One of the men said that if I could find you and take you to his concert he would try and draw your lips to his with the power of his art. He often says things like that. But he's only an artist, so it doesn't matter. Mrs. Rumstick, I want you to find something to do in the next room until I call you. No, leave my things alone. I'll explain what has to be done to them in my own good time. That's right.--We're alone, my dear. Now tell me all about it." She sat on a chair that had the right to groan and caught hold of Lola's hand.

"It's love," said Lola.

"Ah!"

"It's love and adoration and long-deferred hope."

"Oh, my dear, how you excite me!"

"And it can't come right without you."

"Me! Good gracious, but what can I do?"

Lola leaned closer. The pathetic farcicality of the dear old lady's wreaths and becks left the seriousness of all this untouched. She clasped the dimpled hand in both her own and set her will to work. "Bring us together," she whispered, setting fire to romance, so that Lady Cheyne bobbed up and down. "Help us to meet where no one can see, quickly, quickly. The world is getting old."

"Well, there's the library at Number One Hundred! No one has ever been in there except me since Willy passed away. You can come there any time you like and not a soul will see you. And he, if he doesn't mind his trousers, can climb over the back wall, so that he shan't be seen going into the house. I wouldn't do it for any one but you, my dear. That room has dear memories for me."

Kind and sweet,--but what was the use? It must be Chilton, Chilton, or nothing at all. And so Lola kissed her gratitude upon the hot, rouged cheek, but shook her head and sighed. (Go on, de Breze, go on.)

"He wouldn't dare," she said. "Nowhere in town; it's far too dangerous. The least whisper, the merest hint of gossip----"

Lady Cheyne wobbled at the thought. There was more in this than met the eye,--a Great Romance, love in High Places. How wonderful to be in, perhaps, on History. "But at night," she said. "Late, when every one's in bed. I assure you that after twelve One Hundred might be in the country."

"Ah," said Lola, "the country. Isn't there some place in the country, high up near the sky, with woods behind it where we can meet and speak----"

"Whitecross!" cried Lady Cheyne, brilliantly inspired. "Made for love and kisses, if ever there was a place. How dull of me only just to have thought of that."

"Whitecross? What is that?" How eager the tone, how tremulous the voice.

"My darling nest on the Chilterns, where I'm so seldom able to live. If only I could get away,--but I'm tied to town."

"Next Friday, perhaps,--that's the last, the very last----"

"Well, then, it must be Friday. I can't resist this thing, my dear, so I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll leave on Thursday. It will give a new bevy of my proteges a little rest and a quiet time for practise. And you can come down on Friday."

"You darling!" (Good for you, de Breze. Very well done, indeed.)

"Now get a pencil and a piece of paper and write everything down. The station is Princes Risborough." (As if Lola didn't know that!) "You go from Paddington and you catch the two-twenty arriving there just before four. I can't send a car to meet you, because my poor old ten-year-old outside would drop to pieces going up to Whitecross. So you must take a station cab and be driven up in time for tea, and you will find one Russian, one Pole, two Austrians, one Dane and a dear friend of mine with a voice like velvet who was a Checko-Slovak during the War and German before and after. A very nice lot, full of talent. I don't know where they're all going to sleep and I'm sure they don't care, so what's it matter? They'll give us music from morning to night and all sorts of fun in between. Killing two birds with one stone, eh?"

Was it the end of the rainbow at last? "Oh, dear Lady Cheyne, what can I say?"

"Nothing more, now, you dear little wide-eyed celandine; wait till we meet again. Run away and leave me to Mrs. Rumigig. It's a case of old frocks on to new linings. Income tax drives us even to that. But I'm very glad, oh, so very glad you came to me, my dear!"

And Lola threw her arms round the collector of stray dogs and poured out her thanks, with tears. One rung nearer, two rungs nearer.--And in the next room, having heroically overcome an almost conquering desire to put her ear to the keyhole, stood Mrs. Rumbold, still suffering from the second of her surprises.

"Do your best to let me have two day frocks and an evening frock," said Lola. "And I will come for them sometime Friday early. Don't fail me, will you, Mrs. Rumbold? You can't think and I couldn't possibly explain to you how important it is."

"Well, I should say not. I should think it is important, indeed! Little Lola Breezy's doing herself well these days, staying with the nobility and gentry and all."

The woman was amazed to the extent of indiscretion. How did a lady's maid, daughter of the Breezys of Queen's Road, Bayswater, perform such a miracle? They were certainly topsy-turvy times, these.

And then Lola turned quickly and caught Mrs. Rumbold's arm. "You are on your honor to say nothing about me to Lady Cheyne, remember, and if, by any chance, you mention my name, bear in mind that it is Madame de Breze. You understand?"

There was a moment's hesitation followed by a little gasp and a bow. "I quite understand, Modum, and I thank you for your custom."

But before Mrs. Rumbold returned to her workroom, in which the trunks looked more perky now, she remained where she stood for a moment and rolled her eyes.

"Well," she asked herself, "did you _ever_? Modum de Breze!--And she looks it too, and speaks it. My word, them orders! Blowed if the modern girl don't cop the current bun. It isn't for me to say anything, but for the sake of that nice little woman in the watchmaker's shop, I hope it's all right. That's all.--And now, your ladyship, what can I have the pleasure of doing for you, if you please? And thank you for comin', I'm sure. Times is that dull----"

VII

When Lola went into Feo's room that evening it was with the intention of asking for her first holiday. It was a large order; she knew that, because her mistress had made innumerable engagements for the week. But this was to be another and most important rung in that ladder, which, if not achieved, rendered useless the others that she had climbed.

She was overjoyed to find Feo in an excellent mood. Things had been going well. The world had been full of amusement and a new man had turned up, a pucca man this time, discovered at the Winchfields', constant in his attentions ever since. He owned a string of race horses and trained them at Dan Thirlwall's old place behind Worthing, which made him all the more interesting. Feo adored the excitement of racing. And so it was easy for Lola to approach her subject and she did so at the moment when she had her ladyship in her power, the curling irons steaming. "If you please, my lady," she said, in a perfectly even voice and with her eyes on the black bobbed hair, "would it be quite convenient for you if I had a week off from Thursday?"

"But what the devil does that matter?" said Feo. "If I don't give you a week off, I suppose you'll take it."

Lola's lips curled into a smile. It was impossible to resist this woman and her peculiar way of putting things. "But I think you know me better than that," she said, twining that thick wiry hair round the tongs as an Italian twines spaghetti round a fork.

"What makes you think so? I don't know you. I haven't the remotest idea what you're like. You never tell me anything. Ever since you've been with me you've never let me see under your skin once. I don't even believe that you're Breezy's niece. I've only her word for it. After Sunday morning's exhibition, I'm quite inclined to believe that you _are_ Madame de Breze masquerading as a lady's maid. If the War was still going on, I might think that you were a spy. A great idea for you to get into this house and pinch the papers of a Cabinet Minister. Yes, of course you can have a week off. What are you going to do? Get married, after all?"

Lola shook her head and the curl went away from her lips. "I want to go down to the country for a little rest," she said.

Something in the tone of Lola's voice caught Feo's ears. She looked sharply at her reflection in the glass and saw that the little face which had captured her fancy and become so familiar had suddenly taken on an expression of so deep a yearning as to make it almost unrecognizable. The wide-apart eyes burned with emotion, the red lips and those sensitive nostrils denoted a pent-up excitement that was startling. What was it that this strange, secretive child had made up her mind to do--to commit--to lose? "There is love at the bottom of this," she said.

And Lola replied, "Yes, my lady," simply and with a sort of pride. And then took hold of herself, tight. If there had been any one person in all the world to whom she could have poured out her little queer story of all-absorbing love and desire to serve and comfort and inspire and entertain and rejuvenate---- But there wasn't one--and it was Mr. Fallaray's wife who fished to know her secret. Was it one of the ordinary coincidences which had brought, them together--meaningless and accidental--or one of those studied ironies which fate, in its mischievous mood, indulges in so frequently?

"It wouldn't have been any good to deny it. It's all over you like a label. It's an infernal nuisance, Lola, but I'll try and get on without you. If you're not going to get married, watch your step, as the Americans say. I don't give you this tip on moral grounds but from the worldly point of view. You have your living to make and there's Breezy to think about and your people."

She put her hand up and grasped the one in which Lola held the tongs, and drew her round. Strangely enough, this contradictory creature was moved. Whether it was because she saw in Lola's eyes something which no one had been able to bring into her own, who can say? "It's a married man," she told herself, "or it's Chalfont who isn't thinking of marriage." "Go easy, my dear," she added aloud. "Believe only half you hear and get that verified. Men are the most frightful liars. Almost as bad as women. And they have a most convenient knack of forgetting."

And then she released the girl so that she might resume her job, as time was short, and she was dining rather early with the new man at Ranelegh where "Twelfth Night" was to be acted as a pastoral by Bernard Fagan's players. All the same, her mind dwelt not so much with curiosity as with concern upon Lola's leave of absence, because she liked the girl and had found her very loyal, consistently cheery and always ready to hand.

"Let me see," she said, with an uncharacteristic touch of womanliness that must have been brought out by the flaming feminism of Lola. "Among the frocks that I hurled at you on Sunday there's pretty certain to be something that you can wear. Help yourself to anything else that you need. You must look nice. I insist on that. And you'll also want something to put these things in. Tucked away somewhere there are one or two dress cases without my initials. They've come in useful on other occasions. Rout them out. I can't think of anything else, but probably you will." And she waved her hand with those long thin capable fingers, as much as to say, "Don't thank me. You'd do the same for me if I were in your shoes."

But Lola did thank her and wound up an incoherent burst by saying, "You're the most generous woman I've ever imagined."

"Oh, well, I have my moments," replied Feo, who liked it all the same. "Y'see, 'The Colonel's lady and Judy O'Grady are sisters under the skin.'" She was very generous and very much interested and if the truth were to be told a little worried too. For all her coolness at the Carlton, Lola seemed to her to be so young and so obviously virginal,--just the sort of girl who would make a great sacrifice, taking to it a pent-up ecstasy for which she might be asked to pay a pretty heavy price. And it was such a mistake to pay, according to Feo's creed.

Finally, dressed and scented and wearing a pair of oddly shaped lapis earrings, she stood in front of a pier glass for a moment or two, looking herself over, finding under her eyes for the first time one or two disconcerting lines. What was she? Ten years older than this girl whose face was like an unplucked flower? Ten years certainly,--all packed with incidents, not one of which had been touched by ecstasy.

When she turned away it was with a short quick sigh. "Damn," she said, off on one of her sudden tangents. "I can see myself developing into one of those women who join the Salvation Army because they've lost their looks, or get out of the limelight to read bitter verses about dead sea fruit, if I'm not precious careful." And her mind turned back to the hour with Ellingham in that foolish futuristic room of hers and the way in which he had paced up and down, inarticulate, hands in pockets, and eventually been glad to go. Glad to go,--think of it.--Never mind, here was the man with the race horses. He might be a little medieval, perhaps. And on her way out she put her hand under Lola's chin and tilted up her face. "Mf," she said, "you _have_ got it, badly, haven't you?"

And Lola replied, "Yes, my lady," and felt as though she had never left Queen's Road, Bayswater.

"Well, good luck." And Feo was gone.

VIII

So once again Lola stepped out on to the platform of Princes Risborough station to wait while a sulky porter, thoroughly trades-union in all his movements, made up his mind to carry Feo's two cases out to a cab. He first of all read the name on the labels, pronouncing Breze to himself as it was known to Queen's Road, Bayswater. Then, with great deliberation and condescension, having placed a new quid in his mouth, he tilted them on to the barrow and wheeled them along the platform to the station yard, followed by Lola. "Want a cab?" he asked. To which Lola replied, "I don't think I'm quite strong enough to carry them myself."

And he gave her a quick look. "Cheeky," he thought. "Knows enough English fer that, all right." Whereupon he chi-iked the cab driver who was asleep on his box and yelled out, "Don't yer want ter occupy yerself once in a way? Sittin' up there orl day, doin' nothin'! Do yer good to 'ave my job fer a bit. Come on darn. Give a hand with these 'ere. What d'yer think I'm paid fer?"

Lola opened the door of the rickety and rather smelly cab for herself. Neither of the men had thought of that. And then she handed the porter a shilling and looked him straight in the face with her most winning smile. "It doesn't reward you for your great politeness," she said. "But these are hard times."

And as the cab drove slowly off, the porter spat upon the coin. What did he care for snubs? He was as good as anybody else and a damned sight better, he was, with his labor union and all. Politeness! Heh!--Missionaries have introduced the gin bottle to the native and completely undermined his sense of primitive honor while trades unions have injected the virus of discontent into the blood of the English workman and made him a savage.

And so once more the white cross seen above the village; once more the Tillage with its chapels and other public houses,--warm old buildings as yet untouched by the hand of progress, which generally means a cheap shop-front and goods made in Germany; once more the road leading up to the Chiltons, with the shadows of old trees cast across. Chilton Park was passed on the right, with its high wall, time-worn, behind which Fallaray might even then be walking among his gardens. And presently the cab turned in to the driveway of what had once been a farmhouse, to which, by an architect who was an artist and not a builder, wings had been added. The long uneven roof was thatched, the walls all creeper covered, the windows diamond paned, the door low, wide and welcoming. A smooth lawn was dignified with old oaks and beeches and ablaze with numerous beds of sweet Williams and pansies and all the rustic flowers. A charming little place, rather perhaps self-consciously pretty, like a set on the stage. But oh, how delightful after Queen's Road, Bayswater, and the labyrinths of similitude.

Lady Cheyne was followed to the door by all her guests and for a moment Lola thought that she had stumbled on a place crowded with European refugees. A more eccentric collection of human various she had never seen, even during that epoch-making evening at Kensington Gore.

"Here you are, then, looking just as if you had stepped out of one of the pictures in the boudoir of the Duchess de Nantes." Lola received a hearty kiss on both cheeks, and her hostess took the opportunity, while so close, of asking an important question in a whisper. "Your name, my dear. I'm too sorry, but really my capacity for remembering names has gone all loose like a piece of dead elastic."

Lola laughed and told her, and then followed her introduction to the little group of hairy children who were all waiting on tenterhooks for a chance to act. It was a comical introduction, because by the time Lady Cheyne had said "Lola de Breze" she had forgotten the names of all her other guests. And so, with a gurgle of laughter, she pointed to each one in turn,--and they stepped forward and spoke; first the women, "Anna Stezzel," a bow and a flash of teeth, "Regina Spatz," a bow and a gracious smile, and then the men, "Salo Impf," "Valdemar Varvascho," "Simon Zalouhou," "Max Wachevsky," "Willy Pouff," fired in bass, baritone and tenor and accompanied by a kiss upon the little outstretched hand. It was all Lola could do to stop herself from peals of laughter.

Zalouhou, the violinist, was one of the biggest men Lola had ever seen. He stood six foot six in a pair of dilapidated boots and possessed a completely unathletic figure with hips like a woman, large soft hands with long loose fingers and a splendid leonine head with a mass of black hair streaked with white. He towered over the other little people like a modern Gulliver. His face was clean-shaven, with fine features and a noble forehead and a pair of eyes which had never failed to do more to attract crowded matinees of his country women in the old days than the beauty of his playing and the mastery of his technique. He had only just arrived in London, penniless, and in a suit of clothes in which he had slept on many waysides. He had fought for his country and against his country, never knowing why and never wanting to fight, and all the while he had clung desperately to his violin which he had played to ragamuffin troops in order to be supplied with an extra hunk of bread and a drink of coffee. The story of his five or six years of mental and physical chaos, every moment of which was abhorrent to his gentle spirit, was stamped deeply upon his face.

Even as Lola was being escorted upstairs to her room by a thrilled country maid, there was a crash upon the piano in the hall and an outburst of song. What that little house thought of all those extraordinary people who could not keep quiet under any circumstance would have filled a book. The ghosts of former residents, farming people, must have stood about in horror and surprise. And yet, as Lady Cheyne well knew, they were all simple souls ready to go into ecstasies at the sight of a daisy and imbued with genuine loyalty towards each other.

Lady Cheyne followed Lola up. She arrived in the tiny bedroom, whose ceiling sloped down to two small windows, breathless and laughing. "You can't swing a cat in here," she said. "But, after all, who ever does swing a cat? I hope you'll be comfortable and I know you'll be amused. I just want to tell you one thing, my dear. You are at perfect liberty to do whatever you like, to wander away out of range of the piano, with or without any of my dear delightful babies, or stay and listen to them and watch the fun. Until sleep overcomes them they will sing and play and applaud and have the time of their lives,--which is exactly what I've brought them here to do, poor things. All the men will fall in love with you, of course. But you're perfectly used to that, aren't you? You'll look like a miniature among oleographs, but the change will do you good and show you another side of life. One thing I can guarantee. You won't be disturbed in the morning before eleven o'clock. No one thinks of getting up until then. I'm particularly anxious for you to like Zalouhou. I predict that he will have an extraordinary success in London when he makes his appearance next week at Queen's Hall. Did you ever see such a man? If I know anything about it at all, women will rush forward to the platform to kiss his feet,--not because he plays the violin like Kreisler but because of those magnetic eyes. Success in every walk of life is due entirely to eyes. You know that, my dear. And as to the Great Affair, I will ask no questions, see nothing and hear nothing, but rejoice in believing that I am being of use. It is exactly right, isn't it, golden head? Ah, me, those dear dead days. Now come and have some tea and taste my strawberries. They're wonderful this year."

But before going down--and how kind everybody was--Lola stood at one of her windows from which she could see a corner of Chilton Park, and her heart went out to Fallaray like a white dove. It was in the air, in the cloudless sky, in the birds' songs, in the rustle of the leaves, in the beauty and glory of the flowers that her time had come at last, that all her work and training were to be put to the supreme test. Success would mean the little gold cage of which she had heard again in her dream but which would be the merest lead without love. Failure----

Her appearance eventually in the hall, a long, many-windowed room, with great bowls of cut flowers on gate-legged tables and old dressers, was celebrated by Salo Impf with an improvisation on the piano that was filled with spring and received with noisy approval. Imbued with a certain amount of crude tact, the men of the party did nothing more than pay tribute to Lola with their eyes while they surrounded Lady Cheyne as though she were a queen, as indeed she was, having it in her power not only to provide them with bed and board but to bring them out and give them a chance in a country always ready to support talent. It was a funny sight to see this amazingly fat, kind woman pouring tea at a tiny table into tiny cups surrounded by people who seemed to be perpetually hungry, but who sang even while they ate, and laughed and jabbered in between.

"What would Simpkins say if he could see me here?" thought Lola. "And Mother and Ernest and Sir Peter Chalfont--and Lady Feo?"

But she felt happy and in a way comforted among these people. Like her, they were all struggling towards a goal, all striving after something for which they had served their apprenticeship. Not one of them had yet successfully emerged and they were living on what Mrs. Rumbold called, "the scraggy diet of hope." It did her good to be among them at that moment, to hear their discussions in amazingly broken English of a debut in London, to be aware of the extraordinary encouragement which they gave to each other, without jealousy,--which was so rare. She found herself listening enthralled to the arias sung by Anna Stezzel, and the Grieg songs which were so perfectly played by Impf. But it was when Zalouhou stood up with his violin and played some of the wistful folk songs of his country that she sat with her hands clasped together, leaning forward and moved to a deep emotion. Hunger, the daily wrestle with surly earth, illness, the subjection to a crushing autocracy, and beneath it self-preservation,--they were all in these sad, fierce songs, which sometimes burst into passionate resentment and at others laughed a little and jogged along. What a story they told,--so much rougher and so much sterner than her own. They gave her courage to go forward but they left her uncertain as to what was to be her next step.

When Zalouhou played, it was with his eyes on Lola. Her sympathy and understanding drew out his most delicate and imaginative skill and gave him inspiration; and when he had finished and laid aside his violin, he went to the sofa on which she was sitting and crouched hugely at her feet, and said something softly in his own tongue. He spoke no English, but she could guess his meaning because in his eyes there was the look with which she was familiar in the eyes of Treadwell, Simpkins and Chalfont. And she said to herself, "As there is something in me that stirs the hearts of men, give me the chance, O God, to let it be felt by the only man I shall ever love and who is all alone on earth!" And while the room rang with music, she went forward in spirit to the gate in the wall of Chilton Park, which she had seen from her window, opened it and went inside to look for Fallaray. The intuition which had been upon her so long that she might touch the heart of Fallaray in Chilton Park was strong upon her then, once more.

But she had to wait until after dinner before her opportunity came to slip away, and this she did when her fellow-workers had returned to the hall, drawn back to the piano as by a magnet. And then she escaped, in Feo's silver frock, stole into the placid garden which was filled with the aroma of sweet peas and June roses, went down to the gate in the high wall, and stood there, trembling.

(Go on, de Breze, go on!)

IX

Except for the servants, Fallaray was alone in his house.

He had slept late that morning, put newspapers aside, and allowed the telephone to ring unanswered. He was determined, at least for a few days, to cut himself off from London and especially from the new and futile turn that was taking place in politics. It didn't seem to him to matter that, because his chief had boxed the political compass again and, like Gladstone, talked with furious earnestness on both sides of every question only to leave anger and stultification at every step, the papers were making a dead set at him, holding him up to ridicule and abuse and working with vitriolic energy against his government at every bi-election. If this man were dragged at last from the seat that he had won by a trick and held by trickery, another of the same kidney and possibly worse principles would be put into his place to build up another and a similar rampart about himself with bribes and honors. It was the system. Nothing could prevent it. Professional politicians had England by the throat and they were backed by underground money and supported by politically owned newspapers. What use to struggle against such odds? He wanted to forget Ireland for a little while, if it were possible to forget Ireland even for so short a space of time as his holiday would last. He wanted to put out of his mind, the horrible mess in Silesia which was straining the _entente cordiale_ to the breaking point, and the bungling over the coal strike, and so he had been wandering among his rose gardens, hatless, with the breeze in his hair, and the scent of new-mown hay in his nostrils, listening to the piping of the thrush, to the passionate songs of larks, and watching bees busy themselves from flower to flower with a one-eyed industry and honesty which he did not meet in men.

He had lunched out on the terrace and looked down with a great refreshment upon the sweeping valley of Aylesbury, peaceful beneath the sun. He had slept again in the afternoon, out of doors, lulled by the orchestra of birds, and had then gone forth to walk behind those high walls into the forest of beech trees, the dead red leaves of innumerable summers at their roots, and to listen to the tramping feet of the ghosts of Roman armies whose triumphs had left no deeper mark on history than the feet of sea gulls on the sands. And as his brain became quiet and the load of political troubles fell from his shoulders, he began to imagine that he was a free man once more, and a young man, and the old aspirations of adolescence returned to him like the echo of a dream,--to love, to laugh, to build a nest, to wander hand in hand with some sweet thing who trusted him and was wholly his. O God, how good. That was life. That was truth. That was nature.

And when, after dinner, he strolled out once more to look at the sky patterned with stars, dominated by a moon in its cold elusive prime, he was no longer the London Fallaray, round-shouldered, anxious, overworked, immeshed like an impotent fly in the web of the bad old spiders. His chin was up, his shoulders back, a smile upon his lips. That gorgeous air filled his lungs and not even from the highest point of vantage could there be seen one glimpse of the little light burning in the tower of the House of Commons. He was nearer heaven than he had been for a very long time. Exquisite lines from the great poets floated through his mind and somewhere near a nightingale poured out a love song to its mate.

And when presently he took a stand on that corner of the terrace which overlooked the Italian garden, it seemed to him that the magic of the moonlight had stirred some of the stone figures to life. The arm of Cupid seemed to bend and send an arrow into the air and where it fell he saw a shimmer of silver and heard the rustle of silk. And he saw and heard it again and laughed a little at the pranks which imagination played, especially on such a night. And not believing his eyes or his ears, he saw this silver thing move again and come slowly up along the avenue of yews like a living star; and he watched it a little breathlessly and saw that it was a woman, a girl, timid, like a trespasser, but still coming on and on with her head up, and the moonlight in her hair,--golden hair wound round her head like an aureole. And when at last, born as it seemed of moonlight and poetry, she came to the edge of the terrace and stopped, he bent down with the blood tingling in his veins, hardly believing that she was there, still under the impression that he had brought her to that spot out of his never realized longing and desire, and saw that she was not a dream of adolescence but a little live thing with wide-apart eyes and red lips parted and the white halo of youth about her head.

X

A bat blundered in between them and broke the spell.

And Fallaray climbed over the parapet and dropped on his feet at Lola's side. All that day, as indeed, briefly, in the House, at his desk, at night in dreams, ever since the introduction at the Savoy, the eyes of that girl and the thrill of her hand had come back to him like a song, to stir, like the urge of spring. And here, suddenly, she stood, moonlit, but very real, in answer to his subconscious call.

"This is wonderful," he said, blurting out the truth like a naive boy. "I've been thinking of you all day. How did you get here?"

His eager clasp sent a rush of blood through Lola's body. His alone among men's, as she had always known, was the answering touch. "I'm staying with Lady Cheyne," she said. "I saw the gate in the wall and it wasn't locked and I tiptoed in."

"You knew that I was here?"

"Yes, and I came to find you." She blurted out the truth like an unsophisticated girl.

Was it moonlight, the magic of the night, the throbbing song of the nightingale that made him seem as young as she?--No. What then? And as he looked into the eyes of that girl and caught his breath at her disturbing femininity and disordering sense of sex and the sublime unself-consciousness of a child, without challenge and without coquetry, he knew that it was something to be summed up by the words "the rustle of silk," which epitomized beauty and softness and scent, laughter, filmy things and love. And he thanked his gods that not even Feo and the wear and tear of politics had left him out of youth.

And he thanked her for coming to break his loneliness and led her through the sleeping flowers, and those figures which had died again since life had come amongst them, to the arbor made of yews where he had slept that afternoon. And there, high above the sweeping valley among whose villages little lights were blinking like far-off fireflies, they sat and talked and talked, at first like boy and girl, meeting after separation, telling everything but nothing, shirking the truth to save it for a time, and then, presently, with no lights left below and all the earth asleep, like man and woman, reading the truth in eyes that made no effort to disguise it; telling the truth, in broken words; learning the truth from heart that beat to heart until the moon had done her duty and stars had faded out and up over the ridge of hills, reluctantly, a new day came.