Chapter 25

He could hear the newspaper boys crying out the news of the disaster as he was driven swiftly to Cecily's house. The sinking of the great ship had stunned men's minds and humiliated their pride. This beautiful vessel, skilfully built, the greatest ship afloat, had seemed imperishable, the most powerful weapon that man had yet forged to subdue the sea, and in a little while, recoiling from the hidden iceberg, she had foundered, broken as easily as a child's toy, carrying all her vanity and strength to the bottom....

"It isn't true," he kept on saying to himself as if he were trying to contradict the cries of the newsvendors. "She's a Belfast boat and Belfast boats don't go down...."

He felt it oddly, this loss. The drowning of many men and women and children affected him merely as a vague, impersonal thing. "Yes, it's dreadful," he would say when he thought of it, but he was not moved by it. When he remembered Tom Arthurs he was stirred, but less than Ninian had been. He could see him now, just as he had stood in the shipyard that day when John Marsh and Henry had been with him, and he had watched the workmen pouring through the gates. "Those are my pals!" he had said.... Poor Tom Arthurs! Destroyed with the thing that he had conceived and his "pals" had built! But perhaps that was as he would have wished. It would have hurt Tom Arthurs to have lived on after the _Gigantic_ had gone down.... It was not the drowning of a crowd of people or the drowning of Tom Arthurs that most affected Henry. It was the fact that a boat built by Belfast men had foundered on her maiden trip, on a clear, cold night of stars, reeling from the iceberg's blow like a flimsy yacht. He had the Ulsterman's pride in the Ulsterman's power, and he liked to boast that the best ships in the world were built on the Lagan....

"By God," he said to himself, "this'll break their hearts in Belfast!"

The cab drew up before the door of Cecily's house, and in a little while he was with her.

"Have you heard about the _Gigantic_?" he said, as he walked across the room to her.

"Oh, yes," she answered, "isn't it dreadful? Come and sit down here!"

He had not greeted her otherwise than by his question about the _Gigantic_, and she frowned a little as she made room for him beside her on the sofa.

"That great boat!..." he began, but she interrupted him.

"I suppose you're still cross," she said.

"Cross?"

"Yes. You haven't even shaken hands with me!"

He remembered now. "Oh!" he said in confusion, but could say no more.

"Are you really going to Ireland?" she asked, putting her hand on his arm.

"Yes," he answered, feeling his resolution weakening just because she had touched him.

"But why?"

"You know why!" he said.

Her hand dropped from his arm. "I don't know why," she exclaimed pettishly, and he saw and disliked the way her lips turned downwards as she said it.

"I can't bear it, Cecily," he exclaimed. "I must have you to myself or ... or not have you at all!"

"Perfectly absurd!" she murmured.

"It isn't absurd. How can you expect me to feel happy when I see you going off with Jimphy? Can't you understand, Cecily? Here I am with you now, but if Jimphy were to come into the room, I should have to ... to give way, to pretend that I'm not in love with you!"

"I can't see what difference it makes," she said. "Jimphy and I don't interfere with each other. It's ridiculous to make all this fuss. I don't see any necessity to go about telling everybody!..."

"I didn't propose that," he interrupted.

"Yes, you did, Paddy, dear! You asked me to run away with you, and what's that but telling everybody?"

He felt angry with her for what seemed to him to be flippancy. "I'm in earnest, Cecily!" he said. "I'm not joking!"

"I'm in earnest, too. I don't want to run away with you ... not because I don't love you ... I do love you, Paddy, very much ... but it's so absurd to run away and make a ... a mountain out of a molehill. We should be awfully miserable if we were to elope. We'd have to go to some horrid place where we shouldn't know anybody and there'd be nothing to do. Really, it's much pleasanter to go on as we are now, Paddy. You can come here and take me to lunch sometimes and go to the theatre with me when Jimphy wants to go to a music-hall, and ... and so on!"

He could not rid himself of the notion that she was "chattering" in the Lensley style.

"It would be decenter to go away together," he said.

She moved away from him angrily. "You're a prig, Paddy!" she exclaimed. "You can go to Ireland. I don't care!"

He got up as if to go, but did not move away. He stood beside her irresolutely, wishing to go and wishing to stay, and then he bent over her and touched her. "Cecily," he said, "come with me!"

"No!" she answered, keeping her back to him.

"Very well," he said, and he walked across the room towards the door. His hand was on the handle when she called to him.

"Aren't you going to stay to lunch?" she said.

"You told me to go!..."

"Yes, but I didn't mean immediately. I shall be all alone."

He went back to her very quickly, and sat down beside her and folded her in his arms.

"I loathe you," he cried, with his lips pressed against her cheek. "I loathe you because you're so selfish and brutal. You don't really care for me...."

"Oh, I do, Paddy I ..."

"No, you don't. You were making love to Ninian last night!..."

"So that's it, is it?..."

"No, it isn't. Ninian doesn't care about you or about any woman. He's not like me, a soft, sloppy fool. You don't love me. If I were to leave you now, you'd find some one to take my place quite easily. Lensley or Boltt!..."

"They're too middle-aged, Paddy!"

He pushed her away from him. "Damn it, can't you be serious!" he shouted at her.

"You're very rude," she replied.

"I'd like to beat you! I'd like to hurt you!..."

She smiled at him and then she put her arms about his neck and drew him towards her. "You don't loathe me, Paddy," she said softly, soothing him with her voice, "you love me, don't you?"

"Will you come away with me? Now?"

"No!" She kissed him and got up. "Let's go to lunch," she said.

He felt that he ought to leave her then, but he followed her meekly enough.

"I don't think I'll stay to lunch," he said weakly.

"Yes, you will!" she replied. "You can take me to a picture gallery afterwards!..."

4

They did not go to a picture gallery. The spring air was so fresh that she declared she must go for a drive.

"Let's go to Hampstead!" he said, signalling to a taxi-driver. "Well have tea at Jack Straw's Castle!"

"Yes, let's!" she exclaimed.

She had tried to persuade him not to return to Ireland, but he had insisted that he must go because of his promise to Gilbert.

"Do you care for Gilbert more than you care for me?" she had asked, making him wonder at the casual way in which she spoke Gilbert's name. It seemed incredible, listening to her, that Gilbert had been her lover....

"It's hardly the same thing," he replied.

Then, after more pleading and anger, she had given in.

"Very well," she said, "I won't ask you again, and don't let's talk about it any more. Well enjoy to-day anyhow!"

The taxi-cab carried them swiftly to Hampstead.

"Well get out at the Spaniards' Road," he said, "and walk across the Heath. It's beautiful now!"

"All right," she answered.

They did as he said, and walked about the Heath for nearly an hour. The fresh smell of spring exhilarated them, and they sat for a little while on a seat which was perched on rising ground so that they were able to see far beyond the common. Young bracken fronds were thrusting their curled heads upwards through the old brown growth; and the buds on the blackened boughs were bursting from their cases and offering delicate green leaves to the sunlight; and the yellow whins shone like little golden stars on their spiky stems. Henry's capacity for sensuous enjoyment was fully employed, and he would willingly have sat there until dusk, drawing his breath in with as much luxurious feeling as a woman has when she puts new linen on her limbs. He would have liked to strip and bathe his naked body in the Highgate Ponds or run with bare feet over the wet grass ... but Cecily was tired of the Heath.

"Isn't it time we got some tea?" she said, getting up and looking about her as if she were searching for a tea-shop.

"I suppose it is," he answered reluctantly, and he rose too. "We go this way," he said, moving in the direction of Jack Straw's Castle. "Let's come back to the Heath," he added, "after we've had tea!"

"But why?" she asked.

"Oh, because it's so beautiful."

"I thought it was getting chilly," she objected.

5

"I don't see why you want to go to Ireland," she exclaimed, as she handed a cup of tea to him.

"I've told you why," he said.

"Oh, but that isn't a reason. And why does Gilbert want to go? He isn't Irish."

"I suppose!..."

"It's so absurd to go rushing about like this. I should have thought Gilbert would want to stay in town now that his play is on. Is it a success? I haven't looked at the papers, but then I never do. I can't read newspapers ... they're so dull. This tea is nice. And it's much nicer in town now than it can possibly be in Ireland. Besides, I don't want you to go!"

He let her chatter on, hoping that she would exhaust her interest in his visit to Ireland and begin to talk of something else, but he did not know that Cecily had greater tenacity than might appear from the incoherence of her conversation. She held on to a subject until it was settled irrevocably. She looked very charming as she sat opposite to him, and he wondered how Jimphy could be so careless of her loveliness. The sunlight shining through the window above her head kindled her hair so that the ripples of it shone like gold, and the delicate sunburnt flush of her cheeks deepened in the soft glow. He put out his hand and touched her fingers. "Beautiful Cecily!" he said, and she smiled because she liked to be told how beautiful she was.

"But you're going to Ireland," she said.

He did not answer.

"You say you'd do anything for me," she proceeded, "but when I ask you not to go to Ireland, you refuse. If you really love me!..."

"I do love you, Cecily!"

"Well, why don't you stay in town! It's so queer to go away the moment you get to know me!" She began to laugh.

"What's the joke?" he asked.

"Oh, I've just remembered how little we know of each other. You kissed me the first time you came to my house!"

"I loved you the moment I saw you ... that day in the Park when I was with Gilbert ... I loved you then. I didn't know who you were, but I loved you. I couldn't help it, Cecily. You were looking at Gilbert and then your eyes shifted and you looked at me, and I loved you, dear. I worried Gilbert to tell me about you!..."

"What did he say?" she interrupted eagerly, leaning her elbows on the table and resting her chin in the cup of her hands.

"He told me who you were," Henry answered awkwardly.

"But didn't he say anything else?... didn't he?..."

"I've forgotten what he said.... Then I saw you at the St. James's ... he told me you often went to first-nights, and I went specially, hoping to see you!..."

"Dear Paddy," she said, "and you were so shy!"

"And so jealous and angry because you talked all the time to Gilbert, and ignored me. You made me go out of the box with Jimphy, and as I went, I saw you putting your hand out to touch Gilbert, and I heard you calling him, 'Gilbert, darling.' ..."

She laughed, but did not speak.

"And I was frightfully jealous. Gilbert's my best friend, Cecily, but I hated him that night. I suppose ... oh, I don't know!"

"What were you going to say!" she asked.

He looked at her intently for a few moments. Her grey eyes were full of laughter, and he wondered whether she would answer his question seriously.

"Well?" she said.

"Do you still love Gilbert, Cecily! Am I ... just some one to fill in the time ... until Gilbert!..."

She sat back in her seat, and the laughter left her eyes.

"Let's go!" she said.

But he did not move. "You do love him," he persisted, "and you don't love me...."

"Are you going to Ireland with him?" she demanded.

"Yes!"

"Very well, then!" The tightened tone of her voice indicated that there was no more to be said, but he would not heed the warning, and persisted in demanding explanations.

"If you go to Ireland with Gilbert," she said, "I'll never speak to you again!"

She closed her lips firmly, and he saw the downward curve of them again, and while he pondered on what she had said, the thought shot across his mind that that downward curve would deepen as she grew older. "She'll get very bad-tempered!..."

"I mean it," she said, interrupting his thought and compelling him to pay heed to her. "I'll never speak to you again if you go away now."

"But I've promised, Cecily!" he protested.

She shrugged her shoulders. "I don't see what that's got to do with it," she answered.

6

They came out of the inn, and stood for a few moments before the door.

"Shall we go back to the Heath?" he said.

"No," she replied. "Let's go home."

"Very well!"

He felt broken and crushed and tongueless. Cecily did not speak to him as they walked towards the Spaniards' Road, nor did he speak to her. The angry look on her face deterred him.

He hailed a taxi, and they got into it and were driven down Fitzjohn's Avenue and homewards. Once she turned to him and said again, "Are you going to Ireland with him?" but when he answered, "I must, Cecily, I said I would!" she turned away again and did not speak until the taxi drew up before her door.

"Perhaps you'd rather I didn't come in?" he said, expecting that she would dismiss him, but she did not do so.

"Jimphy may be at home," she said, "and probably he'd like to see you!"

"I thought he'd gone away for the day!"

"He may have returned."

She went up the steps of the house while he paid the driver of the taxi-cab, and spoke to the servant who had opened the door.

"He's not in," she said to Henry when he joined her.

"Then I won't ..."

"Come in," she interrupted. "I want to say something to you!"

He followed her into the hall and up the stairs to the drawing-room, where she left him while she went to her room to take off her outdoor garments. He moved aimlessly about until she returned. She had changed her clothes, and was wearing a loose golden silk teagown with a girdle round it, and the gold in her hair seemed to be enriched by the gold in her dress. She went up to him quickly, putting her hands on his shoulders and drawing him close to her.

"Paddy!" she said, and her voice was very tense.

"Yes?" he answered.

"I've never asked you to do anything for me, have I?" She put her arms round his neck and kissed him. He tried to answer her, but could not because her lips were tightly pressed on his.

"You won't go, will you?" she murmured, closing her eyes and tightening her hold on him.

He struggled a little.... "Why don't you want me to go with Gilbert?" he said.

But she did not answer his question. She drew him back to her again, whispering, "I love you, Paddy, I love you. I don't love any one else but you!"

He threw his arms about her, and they stood there forgetful of everything....

She moved a little, and he led her to the sofa where they sat down together. She laid her head on his shoulder, and he put his arms around her and drew her warm, yielding body close to his. He could feel the beating of her heart....

"You won't go, will you, Paddy?" she whispered.

"No," he answered, bending over her and kissing her.

She drew herself closer to him. "Dear Paddy!" she said.

7

He went up to Gilbert's room immediately after he returned home. All the way back from Lady Cecily's, he had told himself that he must tell Gilbert at once that he was not going to Ireland because he was in love with Cecily "and because she's in love with me!" and he had repeated his resolution many times to himself in the hope that by thinking exclusively of it, there would be no opportunity for other thoughts to come into his head. He shrank from the meeting with Gilbert, for his conscience hurt him because of his betrayal of Gilbert's love and friendship. He had palliated his conduct by saying to himself that Gilbert had given Cecily up, but the excuse would not serve to absolve him from the sense of unfriendly behaviour.

"I'm making excuses for myself," he murmured.

"That's all I'm doing. The decent thing is to go to Gilbert and tell him everything ... or ... or I could write it. I could write a long letter to him and get Magnolia to give it to him.... Perhaps that 'ud be better than telling him. It'll be difficult to get a chance to say anything to him with Roger and Ninian about...."

He broke off his thoughts and spoke out loud. "You're funking it," he said. "Damn you, you're funking it!"

"I must tell him myself," he went on. "I must stand up to some one. I can't go on funking things forever...."

It was odd, he thought, that he had no feeling for Jimphy. He had not any sense of shame because he had made love to Jimphy's wife. Jimphy appeared to him only in a comic light. Yet Jimphy had professed friendship for him. "Of course," he said, "they don't love each other!" but in this mood of self-confession which held him, he admitted that he would have felt no contrition even if Jimphy had been devoted to Cecily.

"He's a born cuckold!" he went on. "I might be afraid to take his wife from him, but I wouldn't be ashamed to do it. No one would...."

He had opened the door and gone quickly up the stairs, hoping that he would not meet any of the others. Gilbert would probably be in his study or in his bedroom, and so he could talk to him at once and get the thing over. He knocked on the study door, and then, receiving no answer, opened it and looked in. Gilbert was not there. He went to the bedroom and called "Are you in, Gilbert?" but there was no response. "I suppose he's downstairs," he said to himself, and he walked part of the way down to the dining-room, stopping midway when he saw Magnolia.

"Tell Mr. Farlow I want to speak to him," he called to her. "Up in my study!"

He went to his room, and stood staring out of the window until Gilbert came.

"Hilloa, Quinny, what's up?" Gilbert said, as he entered the study.

Henry turned to him. He could _feel_ the pallor of his cheeks, so nervous was he.

"Gilbert," he said desperately, "I want to talk to you!"

"Yes?..."

"I'm not going to Ireland with you!"

"Not going!... Why?"

He moved mechanically towards Gilbert and stopped at the table where he wrote. He stood for a few moments, fingering things, turning over pieces of foolscap and tapping the table with a paper knife.

"What is it, Quinny?" Gilbert said again, and as he spoke, he came up to Henry and touched him. "Is it ... is it anything about Cecily?" Henry nodded his head. "I thought so," Gilbert continued. He moved away and sat down. "Well, tell me about it," he said.

"I'm in love with her, Gilbert!"

"Yes."

"I ... I asked her to run away with me!..."

Gilbert laughed. "You have hustled, Quinny," he said. "And she wouldn't, eh?"

"No!" Gilbert's laughter stimulated him, and he spoke more fluently. "But she's in love with me. She told me so. I've just come from her. And she wants me to stay in town."

"To be near her?"

"Yes. Yes, I suppose so. I had to tell you. I felt that I must tell you. Gilbert, I'm ashamed, but I can't help it. I love her so much that I'd ... I'd do anything for her."

Gilbert did not move nor did he speak. He sat in his chair, looking very intently at Henry.

"I can't understand myself," Henry went on. "My feelings are hopelessly mixed up. I want to do decent things and I loathe cads, but all the same I do caddish things myself. I want to be straight, but I'm not straight. ... It's awfully hard to explain what I mean, but there's something in me that seems to keep pulling me out of line, and I haven't enough force in me to beat it. I suppose it's the mill in my blood. My grandfather was a mill-owner."

Gilbert shook his head and smiled. "I don't think your notions of heredity are sound, Quinny. Is that all you have to confess?"

"All?"

"Yes. There isn't anything else?"

"No. I wanted to tell you that I'm ashamed, but I must tell you, too, that although I'm ashamed, I shan't stop loving Cecily. I can't...."

Gilbert got up and went over to him. He sat on the edge of the table so that Henry, when he looked up, had to gaze straight at him.

"You're a rum bloke, Quinny," he said. "I'm always telling you that, aren't I? But you were never so rum as you are now. It's no good pretending that I don't feel ... feel anything about Cecily. I do. But I've known about you and her for some while. I knew you'd fall in love with her that day in the Park when you were excited about her beauty and were so anxious that I should introduce you to her. Of course, I knew you'd fall in love with her. I'm not a dramatist for nothing. So what you say isn't news. I mean, it doesn't surprise me. Quinny, I'm awfully fond of you, old chap, much more than I am of Ninian or Roger. I expect it's because you're such a blooming baby. I'm not really upset about your being in love with Cecily. That had to be. But I'm awfully upset about you!"

"Me, Gilbert?" Henry said, looking up in astonishment.

"Yes. You haven't got much resolution, have you? Cecily has only got to blub a little or kiss you a few times, and you're done for ... she can do what she likes with you. You haven't got the courage to run away from her, and you haven't the power to stand up to her and say 'Be-damned to you'!"

"No, I know that!"

"So, I think I'll just kidnap you, Quinny. I think I'll make you come to Ireland with me...."

"You can't do that, Gilbert!"

"Can't I, by God!" Gilbert's voice had changed from its bantering note to a note of resolve. "Do you think I'm going to let my best friend make an ass of himself, and do nothing to prevent him? Quinny, you're an ass! You're too fond of running about saying you can't help this and you can't help that ... and spilling over! And what do you think's going to be the end of this business? I suppose you imagine that Cecily'll change her mind some day, and run away with you? Do you think she'll run away with _you_ when she wouldn't run away with me? Damn you, you've got a nerve to think a thing like that...."

"I don't think that, Gilbert," Henry interjected.

"Oh, yes, you do! Of course, you do! That's natural enough. I wouldn't mind so much if I thought there were a chance that she would run away with you, but she won't!"

"You wouldn't mind!..."

"No. Why should I? If she won't run away with me, she couldn't do better than run away with you. And there'd be a chance then that you'd get on with your job. You'd soon shake down into some sort of balance if you were together, but you'll never get level if you go on in the way you're going now. You'll run up into one emotional crisis and down into another, and you'll spend the time between them in ... in recovering. That's all. And your work will go to blazes. I _know_, Quinny. You see, I was your predecessor...."

"But Cecily's proud of my work...."

"She was proud of mine. So she said. Look here, Quinny, _buck up_! How much of your new novel have you written since you knew her!"

"Not very much, of course, but!..."

"Exactly. I couldn't work either when ... when I was your predecessor. Cecily's greedy, Quinny! She wants _all_ of you ... and she has the power to make you give the whole of yourself to her. If you think that 'all for love and the world well lost' is the right motto for a man ... then Cecily's your woman. But is it? Hang it all, Quinny, you haven't done your work yet ... you've only begun to do it!"

He got off the table and began to search among Henry's papers.

"What are you looking for?" Henry asked.

"I want the manuscript of 'Turbulence.' Where is it?"

"I'll get it. What do you want it for?"