Part 3

“Oh, dear, you are like a man out of every book that was ever written by men about women! I was pretending to read. And then you told me you had come to see Ralph on a point of honour! At last you had summoned up your courage to see Ralph--on a point of honour. And that’s why I wanted you to be silent for a while, for speech sometimes makes a tragedy unbearably idiotic. I wanted peace, Hugo! I wanted just to taste the peace between the old life and the new, the old life in which there was no honour and the new life in which there will anyway be happiness....” And she touched him, but with a blind gesture of his arm he swept her aside, and strode out of the room. She stared, wide-eyed, unrealising, at the panels of the door; she took two quick steps towards the door, she stopped, and then she ran madly to it and opened it and called, “Hugo, Hugo!” But, even as she cried his name, the door below slammed massively, like a knell from the bowels of the earth; and through the windows of the room behind her came the noise of swift footsteps striding away....

She went back into the room. Still she could not realise. She paced about the room, here, there, trying to think, trying not to think, wishing to give way to the intolerable moment, unable to give way. The candles danced furiously in the gentle draught, for she had left the door wide open. She was but a shadow among a furious company of shadows--when, as she was by the windows, she saw one more in the open doorway. She screamed behind her teeth.

“I heard you call his name,” said Ralph Loyalty hoarsely from the door. “Have you quarrelled? D’you mean to say he’s gone for good?”

He came towards her as he spoke. But this was not the Ralph she knew, this was not the Ralph who had lived and died, this was a man with a furious face. He advanced on her. Her knees trembled, and she would have fallen but for a hand on the back of the sofa.

“D’you mean to say he’s gone for good?” he repeated again furiously. She nodded dumbly. She was going to faint.

Then Ralph Loyalty said a wicked word. “D’you mean to say that I’ve been shamming dead in a damned uncomfortable position for the last two hours for nothing?” he bawled at her. “Here have I been for months and months throwing you at each other’s heads and neither of you with the pluck to show your hand!” And he cursed the name of Hugo Carr for the name of a fool and a coward. She was going to faint. He controlled himself a little. He appealed to her. “I didn’t want to hurt your feelings, you see, Joan. I knew how you’d loved me for years, and I couldn’t bear to hurt you, but I’d have given anything to let you see I wanted my freedom to marry someone else. And when I saw that you liked being with Hugo I thought there might be a chance of your liking him instead of me, and so I did my best to throw you together. But Hugo always was a coward--and as I couldn’t bear going on as we were for another night I arranged this thing to-night, thinking that if anything would make Hugo show his hand or would throw you into Hugo’s arms, this would.” And again he said a wicked word. “I didn’t want to hurt you, you see, Joan, and so I thought this would be the best way--and now the silly ass has gone and left us stranded....”

That was the night the nightingale sang in Berkeley Square. A nightingale has never sung in Berkeley Square before, and may never sing there again, but if it does it will probably _mean_ something.

III: THE HUNTER AFTER WILD BEASTS

I

Out of his loneliness, Aubrey Carlyle told me this story one night: not at Malmanor Park, where, with his sister Esther as hostess, he has entertained us all so often, for he said that he could not have told me this story at Malmanor, but in the library of his house in London.

Aubrey Carlyle, who is a man of middle years, had never told this story to any one before, and I can only think he told it to me because I had been a great friend to his wife Gloria. I have not seen Gloria Carlyle for three years, though I have very often wished to, for she is a lady of uncommon quality and was a very loyal friend. Of her George Tarlyon once said that she was a gentleman among women; “And that is a very rare thing,” added Shelmerdene, “for the only advantage most women have over men is in the fact that they are not gentlemen.” But that is as it may be.

The last I heard of Gloria Carlyle was that she had settled in Italy and was living in a villa near Florence. And I saw a vision of Gloria in a very white villa among the myrtle and magnolia and waxen camellias of that country, and walking in lanes where green lizards moved swiftly up grey stone walls--dear Gloria of the tiger-tawny hair and the funny crooked smile like a naughty fairy’s. She was a very sweet and thoughtful woman, and her voice never, never intruded, it was like a hidden stream, quite delicious....

Aubrey Carlyle told me that I could tell or write this story as I wished, saying that it might better the knowledge of men about their womenfolk; “for there are too many men,” he said, “who do not know their jobs as regards their women. And I have learnt mine too late.”

My friend Aubrey is a man of an aloof and almost haughty demeanour, which may have perhaps induced that rather abrupt manner that has repelled many people from him; for though a certain aloofness was thought very proper to the looks of an English gentleman of a past time, it is now held to be quite out of place among the corrupt genialities of the democratic state. A tall, dark-looking man he was, and elegant in a tweedy sort of way. Rich always, he had never been a wastrel, and London bored him to distraction--or “to distinction,” as an American out of Texas once said. A Tory landlord of Liberal sympathies, he was always a model administrator of his properties; and chief among these we, their friends, counted Gloria, for she seemed--how can one suggest these shades of understanding?--more particularly and peculiarly his wife than are the wives of less fortunate men. It is said of the Carlyles that they have always been bad to their women and that there has been no charge on the female estate for more than two hundred years; but Aubrey and Gloria were a charming couple. It was always quite evident that she loved him--tall Gloria of the tiger-tawny hair and the funny crooked smile like a naughty fairy’s; while it was equally evident--to those few, of course, who could look beneath the aloof surface of the man--that he treasured her enormously. And then, one day, she left him; and she never came back.

Now Aubrey despised what he called the “trumpery parlour-tricks” of the countryside. He was not civilised enough, he said. The elegant pastime of killing a pretty fowl of the air without any risk to yourself, or of chasing a scared fox across a county--though that was better, for you at least risked a broken collar-bone--did not amuse him very much. He was a hunter after wild beasts. And because you may not kill wild beasts in England, for they walk on two legs and stern laws protect them, the other four continents knew Aubrey Carlyle for many months in the year. And because Gloria was not a hunter after wild beasts she stayed in England, and was much with us in London, and we sometimes with her at Malmanor. But she was an amazingly still woman.

The war came, and Aubrey was very happy at his pastime, legalised at last, in Flanders, and grew to be a brigadier. And Gloria grew to be a woman, for she had somehow seemed very young until then. The war gasped to conclusion, and soon Aubrey was in South America, in the darkness beyond the upper reaches of the Amazon. And when, one evening, he returned to Malmanor, he found that Gloria was gone.

II

In the vast hall-way of the house, with men tramping about the stone floor bringing in his luggage and his trophies, the butler very silently gave him a slim letter. Aubrey Carlyle looked at the handwriting on the letter, and then at the silent servant.

“When did my wire arrive?”

“At six o’clock last night, sir.”

And then Aubrey knew the letter in his hand to hold the greatest shock of his life. But he was not a dramatic man, he did not take his surprises dramatically. He put the letter into his pocket.

“And then, Hunt?”

“Sir?”

“And then?”

“Madam left by the eleven o’clock London train this morning, sir. She took luggage.”

“I will have a bath now. Very hot, tell Vesey. Dinner at the usual time. Thank you, Hunt.” Twenty-five years had Hunt been with his master; ten years longer than Gloria.

Aubrey had his bath, very hot. And then he put on those nice, slack, black things which so advantage a man’s looks at night; and with them he always wore a soft shirt, for Aubrey would have seen the greatest hostess in the land to blazes rather than be uncomfortable in a stiff one. For a long time he sat on the broad window-seat in his bedroom and looked out on the avenue of tall trees that joined his park to the distant shroud of Carmion Wood. The prospect was very fair in the soft evening light. God is like a woman in the evenings, He makes the land look so shy. And then he heard Gloria’s voice, but it was very distant, for it came from across a wide valley. He just heard Gloria’s voice, but he could not make out what she was saying. And he remembered sudden little phrases of hers in her fine, whispering voice, little broken phrases, and how she would smile very crookedly, and how her great eyes would queerly cloud over.

And then he read the letter. It was a very short letter.

It was after ten o’clock when he passed from the dining-room into the drawing-room. Hunt entered after him to draw the curtains across the French windows, but he was told to let them be; and Hunt switched on the lights, but he was told to switch them off again and that nothing more would be required of him that night.

Again Aubrey read the letter. It was a very short letter. “You know why, dear. Good-bye. Gloria.”

He was angry, because he didn’t know why; he had not the faintest idea why. But anger is no sort of a weapon with which to fight solitude, and this was the most solitary moment of Aubrey Carlyle’s life, he who had hunted wild beasts in the loneliest places of the Americas.

He threw wide open the three French windows and prowled about the large dim room. “You know why.” God in Heaven, what was she talking about! How could he know why?--and what was there to know? He prowled about the room....

They had been good friends, amazingly good friends. He had relied on her to understand that. Good Lord, everything he had done to her or had not done to her had been in friendship! Surely she had understood that.... She had seemed to.... Fourteen, fifteen years.... Why, she couldn’t have expected him to behave like an impassioned lover all the time! Fifteen years.... There were moments.... When he came back from any of his travels and saw her, he loved her madly. It was like a choke in the heart when he saw her on his returns, that marvellous tawny Gloria with the funny crooked smile. Oh, child, child, what have you done? He had treated her like a friend.... And what was the use of having a great friend if you had to write letters to her? He never wrote letters when he was abroad; he hated writing letters. Of course she had understood that....

And he prowled about the large dim room, through the clear throbbing stillness, for the face of the moon hung over distant Carmion Wood and leered genially into the room. He did not understand.... At last he sat down in a great chair by the fireplace, and as he sat there he thought how, after his many returns, he had sat on that chair and taken Gloria to his knee and loved her. And Aubrey Carlyle cried for the first time in his life....

III

He sat there, a very solitary man, and his eyes wandered vaguely through the open windows over the bewitched countryside, his gardens and his park and his acres and his forests, shrouded all in a clear gloom as though God was peering at them in the light of a taper. And the heavy moon climbed the heavens. He saw the twisted shapes of tall flowers in the garden, flowers he did not know, for his head-gardener was a man of invention in August. And then, among the tall shapes of the August flowers, he saw one in particular, and this one was the tallest among them, and it moved. But he sat very still and solemn in his chair, watching the shape of the moving flower, between him and the heavy moon. And then it wavered and stood; for a long time it stood, a shadow in the wan countryside. Perhaps it was afraid, all alone there among the flowers. He watched. And then it was framed in the open window, a soft slim shadow. But he did not move.

“What sort of a play is this,” he heard his voice ask, “in which a woman goes away like a coward and comes back like a wraith?”

And into the room she came, and with a sigh she sat down in a chair by the window.

“Oh, dear!” she sighed. “I am so tired....”

His heart was so torn with gladness that for a long time he could not move, he could not speak. And then he walked across the room and stood above her chair. She turned up her little face under the tiger-tawny hair and smiled her funny crooked smile like a naughty fairy’s.

“Poor Aubrey!” she whispered. “Poor Gloria!...”

But he did not touch her.

“Listen, Gloria,” he whispered. “When I found you had gone, my life cracked like an earthenware cup....” And Aubrey Carlyle stopped, amazed by what he had said; for he had never said a thing like that before.

“And now,” he said, “you have mended it again.”

“Have I?” she cried queerly; and the weight of her eyes on him bore him to his knees by her chair. He had not seen her for eight months, but still he did not touch her.

“And _my_ life, Aubrey?”

“But your life is mine, Gloria! We are together!”

And Gloria, the soft, lovely Gloria smiled into his absorbed face....

“Of course,” she said. “Of course! An Englishman and his wife....”

But he was not listening.

“And did you know why, Aubrey?” she asked.

He shook his head. He had not seen her for eight months.

“I just thought you had gone mad, Gloria. Tell me, are you mad?”

“No, dear; I am very sane. And very tired.” And she said that in a voice which seemed to come from the depths of a very deep bowl, the softest voice that a man ever heard, and it broke the poise of his restraint. He had not seen her for eight months. He was very strong, and a lawless man. He carried her away into the depths of the room. She said nothing.

IV

And then, again, they were by the open windows. But a cloud with a satin fringe hid the moon, and it was so dark that the shine of her eyes was all he could see of her face. And Gloria was so tall that her eyes were almost level with his.

“And so you didn’t know why, in my letter?” she asked miserably.

He humoured her....

“Well, why?”

“You hunt wild beasts, don’t you, Aubrey?”

“And I bring the skins for you to walk on, Gloria.”

“And when you come back from your hunting, you ravage me like a wild beast----”

He cried out sharply in amazement, but she went on, like a sibyl:

“And then you go away again. And then again you come back, to ravage me----”

“Gloria, you are mad!”

“No, I am very sane. And very tired. I loved you, Aubrey. I shall never love any one else. I am clotted with your passions, Aubrey. I wanted love, but you ravaged me like a wild beast. And what is left of me now, I want to preserve. Oh, I want to! _Please_ understand ... just a little! All last night I wondered what I would do. I saw you coming back, my dear, the hunter coming back to his fireside and his wife and his holiday--oh, yes, I am your holiday, Aubrey!--and then I saw you going away again, leaving me.... Oh, Aubrey, how you have sinned against love! And so I went away, because of the horror of it. And I have come back, because of the horror of your loneliness. I, who am used to loneliness! And I also came back to see if you were--different....”

“If,” she whispered, “we were living in a past time, I should go into a nunnery, to get assoiled. But as it is, dear, I shall go for a walk....”

“Let me come with you,” he begged humbly.

“No, Aubrey. I’d like to walk quite alone. Towards the moon and back.” But the moon was behind a cloud with a satin fringe.

He watched her as she walked across the garden and was lost in darkness. He waited for a long time, but he knew she would not return. She has never returned.

IV: THE MAN WITH THE BROKEN NOSE

I

“Ever been to the National Gallery?” asked George Tarlyon.

It was an offensive question to ask a grown man, but I answered it.

“Ah,” said Tarlyon.

“I can’t help thinking,” said Tarlyon, “that you did Madam Tussaud’s the same afternoon....”

“If you want to know, it was the Tower, St. Paul’s, and the National Gallery that I did on the same afternoon. My mother took me.”

“Of course, I can’t compete with your mother,” said Tarlyon; “but I will take you--now. Waiter--the bill, please.”

It was a day in July, and we were sitting over luncheon at the Café Royal. It was very warm for the time of the year. I don’t know if I have mentioned it, but I am something in the City. There was, if you remember, a slump in the City in the summer of 1922. I was in that slump. And so, with one thing and another, I sighed....

“Come on,” said Tarlyon firmly. “One must not neglect art. And two certainly mustn’t.” Poor, silly man!

We walked from the Café Royal to Trafalgar Square, which is an untidy walk on a glaring afternoon in July. And then we walked about the Gallery; we looked at paintings with that rapt look which can see All Round and Into a thing; and we stood before “Musidora Bathing Her Feet.”

“What a masterpiece,” Tarlyon sighed, “if only she hadn’t got three legs!” I could not at first see Musidora’s third leg, but after he had pointed it out to me I could see nothing else but that ghostly third leg dangling over her knee between the other two.

“You see,” he explained, “Gainsborough painted one leg badly, and so he painted it out and fitted another--but Musidora’s third leg came back. Say what you like, there is something displeasing about a woman with an exaggerated number of legs, though some people rather like that kind of thing, saying that a woman can’t have too many....”

It was as we turned away, talking loftily about legs, that we were confronted by a tall and dark young man.

“Sir,” he addressed Tarlyon, “I would be obliged if you would tell me in which gallery hang the pictures by Manet?”

One wondered why he didn’t ask one of the many uniformed men who are strewn about the Gallery for the purpose of being asked that kind of thing.

“You are quite sure,” Tarlyon put frankly to him, “that you do not mean Monet?”

“Manet,” said the dark stranger, and looked as though he meant it.

“Well, then, you’re in luck,” said Tarlyon; “for we, too, were just about to view the Manets. We are partial to Manet. This way.”

We followed him like lambs. Tarlyon’s knowledge as to where the Manets were took the form of trying every gallery in which the Manets were not. We repassed Gainsborough’s three-legged lady, Tarlyon commenting. The dark stranger walked silently but firmly. He was a tall young man of slight but powerful build; his nose, which was of the patrician sort, would have been shapely had it not once been broken in such a way that for ever after it must noticeably incline to one side; and, though his appearance was that of a gentleman, he carried himself with an air of determination and assurance which would, I thought, make any conversation with him rather a business. There was any amount of back-chat in his dark eyes. His hat, which was soft and had the elegance of the well-worn, he wore cavalierly. Shoes by Lobb.

At last a picture rose before our eyes, a large picture, very blue. Now who shall describe that picture which was so blue, blue even to the grass under the soldiers’ feet, the complexion of the soldiers’ faces and the rifles in the soldiers’ hands? Over against a blue tree stood a man, and miserably blue was his face, while the soldiers stood very stiffly with their backs to us, holding their rifles in a position which gave one no room to doubt but that they were about to shoot the solitary man for some misdemeanour. He was the loneliest looking man I have ever seen.

“Manet,” said Tarlyon.

The dark young stranger was absorbed; he pulled his hat a little lower over his left eye, so that the light should not obtrude on his vision....

“Come on,” I whispered to Tarlyon, for we seemed to be intruding--so that I was quite startled when the stranger suddenly turned from the picture to me.

“You see, sir,” he said gravely, “I know all about killing. I have killed many men....”

“Army Service Corps?” inquired Tarlyon.

“No, sir,” snapped the stranger. “I know nothing of your Corps. I am a Zeytounli.”

“Please have patience with me,” I begged the stranger. “What is a Zeytounli?”

He regarded me with those smouldering dark eyes; and I realised vividly that his nose had been broken in some argument which had cost the other man more than a broken nose.

“Zeytoun,” he said, “is a fortress in Armenia. For five hundred years Zeytoun has not laid down her arms, but now she is burnt stones on the ground. The Zeytounlis, sir, are the hill-men of Armenia. I am an Armenian.”

“Oh, I’m so sorry,” Tarlyon murmured.

“Why?” snarled the Armenian.

“Well, you’ve been treated pretty badly, haven’t you?” said Tarlyon. “All these massacres and things....”

The stranger glared at him, and then he laughed at him. I shall remember that laugh. So will Tarlyon. Then the stranger raised a finger and, very gently, he tapped Tarlyon’s shoulder.

“Listen,” said he. “Your manner of speaking bores me. Turks have slain many Armenians. Wherefore Armenians have slain many Turks. You may take it from me that, by sticking to it year in and year out for five hundred years, Armenians have in a tactful way slain more Turks than Turks have slain Armenians. That is why I am proud of being Armenian. And you would oblige me, gentlemen, by informing your countrymen that we have no use for their discarded trousers, which are anyway not so good in quality as they were, but would be grateful for some guns. And you would still further oblige me by trying, in future, not to talk nonsense about Armenians. Adieu, gentlemen. You will probably hear of me again. I am in England on public business.”

He left us.

“I didn’t know,” I murmured, “that Armenians were like that. I have been misled about Armenians. And he speaks English very well....”

“Hum,” said Tarlyon thoughtfully. “But no one would say he was Armenian if he wasn’t, would he?”

“Also,” said I, “he is the most aggressive young man I have ever met. Manet indeed!”

“So would you be aggressive, if you had been massacred and made an atrocity of ever since you were a slip of a boy, and had spent your holidays being chased round Lake Van by roaring Turks and hairy Kurds with scimitars dripping with the blood of Circassian children.”

“Oh, not Circassian!” I pleaded, for I have always been very sentimental about Circassian women; but Tarlyon insisted that they generally died young and that they were a fat race....

II

This is what actually happened, towards midnight of that very day, within a stone’s-throw of Claridge’s Hotel, in Brook Street, Mayfair. George Tarlyon and I had been of the same company for dinner and then bridge at a house in Brook Street. Towards midnight a gap in the bridge allowed us to slip away, which we did. Tarlyon had parked his car outside Claridge’s, and thither we walked.