Part 2

"'Oh, you are too quick!' she murmured. And she raised her head on her elbow and looked at me.

"'Dear Noël Anson,' she said, 'our lives go different ways. To-day we had never met, and to-morrow it must be as though we had never met. For life is not a romance, it is a reality, and it is much stronger than our--inclinations? And even if I loved you it would be the same, I should be saying what I am saying now, because in me there is something much stronger than love, much more inevitable.... Please, you must believe me, it will hurt me if you do not believe me. I am not playing any more. I do not play with memories of crushed orchids, because it is only fools who think there is no pleasure in being serious ... just sometimes.'

"'It is no use for me to say any more,' she said, 'because if you like me very much then, anyway, you will be bitter about me--and if you do not like me very much then you will only think me (how is it?) an odd sort of woman.... I command you, and I put you on your honour to obey, that when you leave this house you will go into the brougham waiting for you without looking to see the number of the house, nor the name of the street, so that you will never see me again, you man.... But it is now very, very late, you must go, Don Noël, you must go! And take with you my blessings--Adieu!'

"But I can only repeat her words to you barely and crudely. I can't hope to give you the tragic gesture of impotence in her voice, and the way her voice grew lighter and lighter until it seemed to become part of the air, as impalpable, as mysterious. And at the end her voice had died down to almost less than a whisper, her 'adieu' had fainted between her tongue and her lips, it was only a wisp of a dying word. It was strangely as though she were rehearsing something she might have to say sometime.... She was only rehearsing. I waited.

"'Oh, but isn't that enough!' she almost cried, suddenly. 'Have I not done it quite, quite well, or do you want me to think of something else--something more ... more dramatic?'

"'Please, please do make it easy for me, Don Noël--do go away, please!' she begged. 'This is so difficult, so much more difficult than I.... It is not a tragedy, this, remember! It is an incident, and the incident is finished, that's all. Don't please let me make a tragedy of it--by apologising! You see, my Noël, I am so weak, so weak. I feel such a bad woman, such a brute.... And you can never understand why, never.... Forgive me, and go!'

"Her very last word was almost brutal in its defined meaning, it held no uncertainty; but I didn't move at that moment. I remembered that I did not know her name.

"'A few moments ago, before you spoke, I had a dream,' I said. 'And in my dream I was told that you would tell me your name, the name that will explain the initials under the coronet on your hairbrushes. The adventure would not have been so complete without a coronet, so I looked to see if one was there, and behold! it was there. I am such a snob, I would like to know your name.... And then I would forget it.'

"'That was a false dream,' she said. 'You will not know my name, you will not know where this house is, you will not know anything. Don Noël, you will be an English gentleman of the kind we find in books, you will not remember or know anything that I do not wish. You will not look at the number of the house, nor at the name of the street. That is my wish.'

"She was quite, quite cold. Just like a woman who has had a love affair which has lasted an eternity but cannot outlast another second. How wise she was to let me see that--oh, well, anti-climax! She knew that men do not fall of their own accord from great heights down to Mother Earth, they must be pushed over--ever so gently, gently.

"'It is getting light,' she murmured.

"But as I rose she confessed her affectation; she threw her arms round my neck and brought my face close to hers.

"'You fool man!' she said. 'Why do you hurt yourself and me? Why did you just say that this was an adventure? This has not been an adventure, it has been a love-affair.... And always remember that I asked you to forgive me. Always.'

"When I was at the door I had to turn round. I had feared this moment of going, and I had made up my mind to go quickly and be done with it. But I make a bad actor, and artistic effects can go to the devil for all I care. With my hand on the knob I had to turn round.

"'I can't go like this,' I said. And I walked back across the room, and looked down on her.

"'I can't. It seems wrong,' I said.

"'Perhaps, then, it was not worth it?' she asked, so tentatively!

"'It will always have been worth it.... But there _is_ something missing, isn't there?'

"'But, of course, Don Noël! There is much missing, for it is an unfinished romance which will never be finished. You do not understand--this is life!

"'I know. You are a baby, like all really nice men, and you want a piece of chocolate to eat as you go away,' she said. 'Bring your head down--yes, down, down, Noël--and I will give it to you.... Listen, you! It is decided that you will never see me again, is it not? And that you will keep your promise not to look where this house is, so that you will never, never find me again? But, my dear, will you please believe that I am ver' ver' sorry, that I would like to see you many, many times before this stupid "good-bye." For it is not every day that people like you and I meet, we could laugh and cry so well together.... A long time ago, as we came into this house (and we came in because we had to come in, my Noël) I asked you if you were good at forgetting. But you have been such a dear that I now give you permission to remember--me! And that is the end of my vanity and your love affair, Don Noël, for now you must go away, out of the house into the night from which you came--oh, so wonderfully! Go--adieu, adieu.'

"And this time I did not turn round at the door, but went out of the room and out of the house, into the pale darkness of the early morning. The squat shape of the electric brougham was there, waiting on ice for me; but the bent figure of the man in the driving-seat seemed asleep, he certainly did not hear me until I was opening the door of the cab, when I gave him my direction. And I stepped in. The thing glided softly away, and I lay back and closed my eyes....

"I don't know how what I've told you has impressed you, I may indeed have made the thing seem farcical; it had begun as a--well--casual adventure, it had ended--ended! with me sitting back in her brougham, seriously, abjectly miserable! My feeling was one of deadly and unutterable flatness--just that. From my own lips had come a promise that I would let something go, something which I wanted more than anything else in the world, something which would never come back! I would never see her again! Everything but that one agonising certainty was in utter blankness. I was very flat, everything was grey....

"The brougham soon drew up at my door in Mount Street. I got out and stood by the footboard, rather absentmindedly fumbling in my pocket for a pound note to give to this obviously very confidential chauffeur. He was still huddled up in his seat, his peaked cap well over his eyes, his coat-collar turned up over half his face. Only his nose was really visible, and that dimly. I was vaguely staring at it as I picked out a note, a little piqued by the fellow's utter lack of interest in me. I had only stood there, say, four seconds or so; he hadn't looked at me once, wasn't even going to wait for the tip, for I saw that he was releasing the lever to move off--when suddenly, staring at that nose, I realised with a shock that I had seen it before. The car was almost in motion when I said, sharply, amazedly:

"'But you've shaved off your moustache!'

"The car stopped. The man deliberately got out, and stood on the pavement beside me. I am pretty tall, but he was even taller. I could see his face clearly now--yes, it was he! looking almost cadaverous without his sweeping _moustachios_, but still very distinguished. He was smiling at me, with a strange urbanity.

"'This is very awkward,' he said, or rather murmured; his accent and voice were distinctly foreign.

"'Very,' I agreed hotly. I was angry, shocked. 'It's so awkward that I wonder how you put up with it.'

"'I can do one of two things,' he went on, ignoring my bad temper, but looking intently at me. 'I can either kill you, or I can explain.'

"He looked about forty, and there was a courteous and fatherly air about him which I found intensely irritating. But any manner would have been irritating in my absurd position.

"'You have a perfect right to do the first, of course,' I rapped out. 'But may I suggest that you do both, and the explaining first, if you don't mind. I think I'm rather entitled to one, don't you?'

"He considered me for a moment.

"'As you will, then,' he conceded. 'If you will get back into the cab I will explain in there. I have found the night air rather chilly.'

"His manner infected me. 'If you will accept my hospitality for a moment, please come inside. And perhaps a little firewater....' I suggested vaguely.

"He accepted my invitation with a bow, and followed me into my flat. In the sitting-room he unbuttoned his heavy coat, and stood with his back to the empty grate; a tall, slim, decorative, and dangerous gentleman. He made me feel like a baby in arms, but I stifled my irritation. I poured out two stiff whiskies.

"'Only a touch of soda, thanks,' he answered my inquiry.

"'It was clever of you to recognise me by my nose,' he said. 'But the Casamonas have been proud of their noses for so long that I, the last of them, find it a little hard to have to conceal mine even for a few minutes. And as for my moustache, to the absence of which you referred so pointedly, that has been gone for some time. That portrait of me which you saw was painted a long time ago, and since then I have become subject to colds in the head. And I found that my _moustachios_ became frequently _mal-soignés_ after the continual application, however delicate, of a handkerchief. I begin to concede that there may, after all, be some defence for that "tooth-brush" parody of a moustache which you, _par exemple_, can so charmingly affect.'

"No, he wasn't laughing at me. He was just talking courteously on about whatever had come first. But I couldn't bear it.

"'Eh--about that little matter,' I said absurdly, feeling more and more like a tradesman.

"'Yes, of course,' he instantly agreed. He drained his glass, put it delicately down on the table, and then turned to me.

"'If you will forgive a pointed question--did you keep your promise not to look where the house was?'

"I had given up being irritated, it was so clearly no use.

"'Of course I did.' I answered abruptly.

"'Good! How charming it is to meet in life what one is tired of meeting in books--for you are exactly like the English gentlemen in Mr. Oppenheim's novels who always lose secret documents and find beautiful wives. I envy them, and you--but oh, my dear sir, I do wish you were a little more wicked and human!'

"'Are you complaining of my being too good!' I burst out, amazed.

"He saw the point, and for the first time really laughed.

"'I see that I must get to my explanation quickly,' he apologised. 'May I sit down? Thank you.... That lady, as you have guessed, is my wife. Or, more correctly, she was my wife until two years ago. Since when she has been so only in name. I use the language of convention so that you may the more quickly understand me.... She loved me, but she ceased to love me. It happens thus. And though I love her still, it is without fire or passion; it is not the love of a possesser, but of a connoisseur. I love her as I love a vase, a marble, any really beautiful thing. You understand?... We married four years ago, in Paris. She is of the best Sicilian blood, but a rebel, an _aristo_ in revolt. She believes in only one law, and that is the law of lawlessness. We met without the formal courtesies of an introduction--if I may draw a parallel, as you and she met a few hours ago. And again, since I am as sensitive a person as yourself--it is our charm, my dear sir--the same happened to me four years ago as to you to-night. The night took wings, and carried us away to the very pinnacles of wonderful adventure--she and I, king and queen of more than one world! To the very pinnacles of that enchanting adventure towards which the poets and philosophers of ages have been vainly scrambling, that adventure for which cities have been sacked and battles won. You, too, have been on those heights, and you know. In most men's lives those heights are never attained, but you and I have been supremely fortunate. _I_ regret nothing.... Night became morning, romance became life. The adventure ended. And I found myself in the street, with her last command ringing in my ears, not to look where the house was, to forget--everything! The Seine seemed alluring to my agony.... But I am Italian, I have at least the courage of my passions, and so I broke my promise. I called the very next afternoon. And how can I express to you, even now, my great surprise at the warmness of my reception! For the fingers with which I had given the _concierge_ my card had trembled with fear--had she not commanded me never to see her again! But it needed only one second of her presence to soothe my fear, she was so gay, so cordial, so quite delighted to see me! No word of any promise, no word of last night, passed her lips--we had met before, that is all! But we were not long together before another joined us--a short _chic_ little man, of an agreeable air. He looked that rarest of all human beings, a banker from whom it would be a pleasure to borrow money. And as he came towards us I wondered if this was yet one more slave of this marvellous lamp, but she introduced him to my bewilderment as her husband. And then--imagine it--presented me to him as her future husband! All in the most casual and un-ostentatious way, as though she were performing a mere formality; and as such, indeed, this amazing husband accepted it. For instead of knocking me down, he bowed politely and took my hand. As for her, I didn't dare look at her, I was so embarrassed. But when at last, as tea was served, I did look, she smiled at me, and I knew that her smile was to say, "This is your punishment for breaking your oath. I am so sorry...." The husband did not stay for more than five minutes; obviously he did not wish to intrude. But before he left us he turned to me, and with the most charming deference, said: "You will find everything arranged. Madame will explain. I beg you to accept my sincerest wishes for your happiness." And then his lips touched her fingers, and he left us--to let himself be divorced so that Madame could marry me, who had never dared even to dream of such supreme happiness. And so it was that we married.

"'I am sorry to be so tiresome and detailed, but the worst is over. For the rest of my tale is a commonplace in the history of the world--you realise? She tired of me. Gently, but remorselessly. As such wonderful women will, you know. It is no use kicking--no man, neither Hector, nor Adonis, nor Machiavelli, can supply the deficiencies of the sphinx. She smiles and says "no," she says "no" even to the wisdom of Solomon, and besotted man sprawls at her feet and murmurs frantically that, anyway, it is better to be miserable about her than to be happy about any one else.... Yes, my friend, men have been known to say that to women. I myself have said it more than once, but I only believed it once. That was two years ago. But it was no use, her love was as dead as though it had never been--I was a man, I had become a God, and now I was a man again. And so the revolt of man ended in submission, and I had to acquiesce in her mere affection for me--that affection with which all splendid women enshroud their dead loves. And how much in oneself dies with their dead love! Why, there dies the ritual of love, the sacrament of sex! for sex can be exalted to a sacrament only once in a lifetime, for the rest it's just a game, an indoor sport....

"'You see, such women as she make their own laws. It is not her fault, nor her arrogance, it is ours, who are so consistently susceptible. Physically she belongs to the universe, not to one single man. She never belonged to me, I was just an expression of the world to her. She has never belonged to any one, she never will--for she is in quest of the ideal which even she will never find. And so she will go on, testing our--our quality and breaking our hearts. Men have killed themselves because of her, poor dear, and I too would have considered it seriously if I had not found that she ranked suicide high in the list of supreme impoliteness from men to women.

"'I had suggested that she should divorce me, but she would not do that, for she complained of a nervous fear of being left alone in a house. We were in Rome then, and we could envisage no possible husband for her from among our acquaintance--so she begged me to continue in my capacity for a while. Of course, I was only too pleased.... In the end we hit upon the only way out of the _impasse_--that she should do what she had (so successfully, she sweetly said) done before, and risk the adventure; and if the young man was acceptable, and broke his solemn promise, and came to see her, then he would be made to suffer the penalty of his weakness--happy, wretched youth! But I would not let her take the risk without some guarantee as to her safety, for even adventures can sometimes become unpleasant, and so I insisted that I should be her chauffeur for the occasion--and from beginning to end of the adventure, I insisted. To which she replied, smiling, that it would not always be the same--"you will not be kept waiting long," she said.

"'And it happened as she said, for in the two adventures before this of yours I was indeed not kept waiting long. Not for more than an hour, in fact--in each case the wretched young man had a good supper and left immediately after, wondering how this most unattainable of women had ever come, so informally, to invite him. The first happened in Vienna, the second in Paris--they bored her utterly to death, she told me. And thus the occasion for the promise, the pivot of the adventure, as you realise, never arose in those two cases. But in yours, the third....'

"'Yes?' I asked eagerly.

"'The night air was certainly chilly,' he demurred gently.

"He was silent for a few long minutes. I waited intently. And then he leaned forward towards me, and put a hand lightly on my knee.

"'Young man, will you forgive an impertinence?' His eyes held in them the kindliest light; my silence answered them, and he continued: 'I am perhaps twelve or thirteen years older than you, so I may be allowed the liberty of advising you--about something in which I am an expert. Never, never try to find the house to which you went a few hours ago--never, I say! And I say it because I like you, and because I know that she is the most enchanting woman in the world; and if _she_ likes you, so she is the more enchanting--and the more dangerous! As she was dangerous to me.... You forgive the liberty I have taken?'

"He let his quite solemn speech balance in the air for a long pause, then got up and, very lazily, stretched his arms over his head. And a delightful, intimate smile passed over his lean face--the man had a large share of the divine essence of childishness.

"'You know your 'Trilby'? he asked lightly; and murmured into the air:--

'Hélas! Je sais un chant d'amour, Triste et gai, tour à tour!'

"As he went to the door I sat on in my chair; circumstances somehow waived aside common politeness. I just stared after him--to meet his eyes, for from the door he turned round just to say:--

"'I did not mean to jeer at your honesty in keeping your promise to madame--please never think that. On the contrary, I sincerely admire you--and congratulate you! For you have avoided a marvellous misery.... Good-night, Sir Lancelot. Adieu!'"

The Italian's exit seemed to bring Noël Anson's tale to an end, and yet so abruptly that I could not but wait for a final ending. He waited, but threw the end of his cigarette into the dying fire, and continued silent.

"And so you never saw her again, and lived unhappily ever after?" I suggested at last. But I wasn't prepared for his quick, pitying stare. He heaved himself up from his chair.

"You damn fool!" he said. "Didn't I tell you all through dinner that I was divorced six months ago!"

"But your promise--you told him--"

"The first thing I did when I left that house," he explained firmly, "was to look round at the number on that door...."

II: FAY RICHMOND

II: FAY RICHMOND

THE influenza epidemic of the winter of 1918-19 will for me always be memorable for a strange coincidence, which could in no way have happened but for that plague's overwhelming rush; and together with that I remember vividly the grieved face of a homely matron, as she spoke to me that January afternoon on the hushed stairway of a nursing-home in Beaumont Street. It was, I suppose, one of those unreal incidents which are so essentially part of that life which realism likes to depict, that a realist may often fail to translate them into his tale (after that very old man, blind to the thing under his nose), whereas a romanticist will, perhaps, with a debonair gesture, give them their true part in the histories of his creatures.

Thus, this tale, sown however dismally, takes to itself the air of a romance; not mine indeed, nor Howard Wentworth's, the well-known playwright whom it intimately concerns, but Fay Richmond's. I call her by that name even though it was lost, in the way that women must lose the most apt and adequate names (as only names can be), on her Italian marriage some twenty years before Howard told me about her. He was curiously infatuated with it; I remember him repeating it, delicately, and pronouncing it a beautiful name, not unworthy of the meditation of Mr. George Moore by his fireside in Ebury Street.

"No, it was too fitting a name to last," he said. "A girl with such a name couldn't but die or get married young.... Can you imagine an aged spinster called Fay Richmond? It could only be the name of a lovely girl, but it could never live much more than twenty years except in a novel by, well, Disraeli or Meredith; unlikely enough shades, you'll say, the bedizened and the tortuous, to be joined together even in sentimental discourse about a girl's name, with whom I've already bored you sufficiently...."

"But I haven't met her yet!" I protested actively from my side of the fireplace, in his room in the Beaumont Street nursing home.

Influenza had already gripped and released me, so that I was now in an irritatingly robust state of health in which to visit a less fortunate friend who had succumbed to its second wave; for that second wave was more virulent and more treacherous than the first, mocking its victim into partial convalescence and then, with a jeer and a snarl at the ambuscaded wretch, fixing again upon the damaged lungs, so inexorably that there was only the one release. And thus Howard Wentworth, who was thought, even by himself, to have cheated the thing, in the end died; not ten days after that afternoon when I had sat listening to him, as he lounged in the happy _déshabillé_ of convalescence, and was reminiscent about a girl called Fay Richmond.