G. B. Stern

“ Theatricality is only a species of fat. If you strip yourself because it gives opportunity for your dramatic faculties, you’re feeding hard, all the time; feeding on the astounded faces of your friends, on your own ringing accents, on the picturesque contrast of your life as it was yesterday to what it will be to-morrow. You mustn’t be picturesque, Levi, your tawny locks are against you as it is. Your forty bob a week will ensure you a pleasantly mediocre existence in a furnished bed-sitting-room.”
Sebastian looked worried; he wished Stuart would not exhibit so many mental acrobatics. ”

“ Peter was seeing it now: “You will begin to take me for granted, and not strain to please me. And I—I might possibly become exacting——”
“That phase would pass as well. We should grow older, more comfortable, wonder what the uneasiness had all been about, and the sense of loss. Impulse would slip away and topsy-turvydom and conceit”—Stuart waxed pathetic at the contemplated loss of his insufferable bumptiousness,—“and, sane together, we will wonder we could ever have been mad together. If I must age to sanity, damn it! I’ll face the process alone.” ”

“ He debated all the while what thing he could do to win again that quick smile from Stuart. He wanted that man’s approval—more than aught else he wanted it—would force it somehow, no matter by what extravagance of action. He believed Stuart despised him, and the thought cut like rain-rods in a north-easterly. “If he doesn’t despise me, then why won’t he tell me more about his—his ideas?”
But on no subsequent visit to the Haven, was Stuart to be drawn. “My creed is the wrong sort for an engaged young man; better leave it alone. By the way, you promised that I should see your fiancée.” ”

“ And you’ll forget that Letty’s throat was white as foam, and curved like the curve of a wave,—because Letty will be yours, throat and all, whenever you want her. You’ll never know fun, hard perilous fun, because you’ll never seek peril; you’ll say that you have too many responsibilities, as a husband and a citizen and a philanthropist, to expose yourself unnecessarily. You’ll never be splendidly weary with battle, nor yet know the leanness of spirit which comes from desire unfulfilled, nor will you grow breathless with the exhilaration of a race against your own luck. ”

“ Peter could best have enlightened the Respectable Old Gentleman, to whom stations were stations, neither more nor less. Euston was her terminus for Thatch Lane; and on the many occasions that Stuart had accompanied her thither, they had taken to their hearts the grim portals and endless echoing approach, the labyrinth of platform and grey mystery of booking-hall, the infinite possibilities in its stretching regions and sinister corners. ”

“ The white skimming sail would have been here a strange anomaly, and the supple curve of pleasure boat. With grimness tempered to mystery by their flying streamers of smoke, the black trading-vessels alone ruffled the even slant of the water, flowing, rippling, landwards to the Haven.
Here then, Stuart passed the days following his renunciation of Peter. He was disappointed that the detached exultation of spirit was absent, that should have rewarded the man with will strong enough to perpetrate a theory. ”

“ Stuart smiled, and ceased to resemble the lonely millionaire of fiction. The triangle for the moment was clearly isosceles: a short line connecting points X and Z at the base, while Y lay infinitely remote at the apex.
“It is going to be difficult,” thought Y exultantly.
For Stuart was nauseated by the rose-path.
And the pride of them was like wind sweeping through the hair. Pride of youth and good looks and active limb. Pride in their need of one another, and their power to stand alone withal. Most of all, pride of brain, that could leap from point to point, nor ever lose a foothold ”

“ Thus Stuart to the conception of Peter which he had built from his own desire and from the cavalier tilt of her head. And seeing clearly his Portrait-of-a-Lady; battle-eager and brain-clear and courageous; glorying in freedom from all bondage; a lady with mockery on her lips, and sudden moods of tenderness in her soul, as of mist veiling softly a shining sword; swift in recovery after defeat; tempered at all times to fine adjustment of the spirit to circumstance and adventure; and withal a lady mysterious and unexpected, but of bodily hardihood like to a man’s ”

“ Which of them is Logan Thane? “Wait for me,” pleads Rose-Marie, still busy with her powder-puff. A burst of music from the ballroom, striking thrilling response from the tuned-up senses. Events moving with the swift unreality of a cinema. The ballroom swims forward and engulfs Peter with its hum of talk, rising and falling like waves on a flat beach; its light mellowed by blossoms; blossoms made translucent by light. Impression of a group just within the doorway; Merle’s grandmother, from a mere solicitous voice in Lancaster Gate: “Es-tu fatiguée, chérie?” ”

“ A fish leapt shining from the water, and plunged again into a circle of ripples. From round the next bend still drifted snatches of the ‘Ragtime Goblin Man’; evidently John had not yet spoken. Some distance over the land, yet not so far but that they should distinctly have heard the throb and clangour, a train passed in a linked blur of lights; passed noiselessly, like a phantom train. Peter, watching it, wished passionately that she might hear it whistle, as reassurance that she herself was real, and not a pictured castaway upon a badly drawn bit of wreckage. ”

“ A world in which dwelt Stuart the metaphysician, who, stronger even than Stuart the leprechaun, recognized with dismay an ability to slip out of the trio and its pattern, its march-rhythm and its corkscrew wit; get glimpses of himself as a bit of a fool; of the whole edifice they had raised, as absurd, exaggerated; doubting whether such close comradeship with two girls, save with the outlook and excuse of pure masculinity, did not contain an element—yes, though he loathed the term, an element of the fantastic? ”

“ The front door of the house was suddenly flung wide open, and Peter’s flapper cousin Jinny, flanked by a whole bevy of young people, flocked through the aperture, bore down upon her with boisterous greeting. And now steps and doorway and silent street were a-swarm with marionette-shapes, whose shrill cries and exclamations drowned the beat of Stuart’s retreating steps....
Peter was hauled indoors—she could almost hear her face click as she adjusted it to the suddenly altered conditions.
“Come along in, do; we’re kicking up no end of a shindy! I say, won’t your friend join as well?” ”

“ Stuart awoke her by hammering blows upon her door. She went again to the window before she opened [207] to him. A bright blue sky now; trim red roof of boathouse and ferryhouse and bungalow, warm in the clear sunshine; screaming, cackling, chattering chorus of waterfowl; a sail, left hoisted overnight, flung its broken dance upon the water, sparkling and rioting between its clumps of emerald-green reeds. The world washed clean of mystery and evil alike. Peter slid open her door a few inches. ”

“ With wild hurrahs, a tangle of long legs and flying skirts whizzed down the banisters and landed in a heap at the foot.
Something delightful and sturdy, with dark red hair and blown-out cheeks, was marching to and fro on the polished drawing-room floor, waving flags and shouting....
Thus Merle drew from the Land of Corners, shadowy corners of the old house, dim unswept corners in her brain, dog-eared corners of forgotten picture-books, a whole host of children; ordinary, healthy, grubby youngsters, who would reduce the silent beautiful rooms to their proper state of scrum and chaos. ”

“ Aureole had since three years been striving to teach Oliver this language, which came so naturally to the man beside her. To “work up a scene” with her husband had held as much—or as little—intoxication, as going to a ball, in a blouse and skirt, at eleven o’clock of a November morning. Aureole had an insatiable greed for ‘powerful’ scenes; she took dalliance seriously, inasmuch as she always saw herself as a coquette with a heart of stone, scratching at hearts of flesh to see how they bled. “I’m a beast!” ”

“ Peter produced a dainty square of lawn and lace. Peter bent her boyish halo of hair in deep absorption over the injured member. And both her own partner and the victim supplied all the obvious patter about the “healing touch,” and “it was worth while to have suffered,” and “some people have all the luck,” and (of course) “will you let me keep the handkerchief?”—unutterable meanings in the request.
“‘When pain and anguish wring the brow,’” Merle murmured to her plate, as a very flushed ministering angel raised her head from the act of mercy. ”

“ But in their own Playroom, the trio disport themselves as lords and emperors. Boundless space is theirs; time without limit; while facts they prick and shrivel like toy-balloons.
Peter, astride of the engine which draws her wagon-lit, is whizzing round and round the Outer Circle, all the signals in her favour, that naught shall arrest her triumphant speed.
Merle, discovering that Stuart has, after all, succeeded in importing his private public-house, enters through its swing-doors, nothing loth to demand a strawberry-ice-cream [112] soda. ”

“ Where’s your honour where Chavvy is concerned? little Chavvy, yours by right of England’s sacred laws, and by her unwavering love! It’s men like you,” continued Stuart Heron, “who wreck the sanctity of the home and violate the sanctity of the heart”—seeing that Bertram was perforce not attending to his eloquent harangue, he addressed himself to Aureole: “I’ve told you the truth, Aureole; and I can prove it to be the truth. You’ve come into his arms only over the body of another woman. ”

“ And then she saw the bridge ahead; and Stuart announced with gentle pleasure: “We’ve won,” and slipped into her place, and turned the ‘Tyke’ downstream. The defeated crew called out a hearty word of appreciation; Peter smiled at them; lit a cigarette; and, soaked by the churned-up spray, her hands stiff and bleeding, subsided on to the floor of their vessel, whereof she watched in passive admiration Stuart’s perfect handling.
“I now propose,” he said, “that we should feast our victory while under way, which in itself is a battle of some stubbornness. ”

“ My girls always know the difference. And that’s why, when a high-class authoress comes along with her nose in the air and offers to scribble me something in her spare time, I know it will be no good. I tell her so, straight out. One can’t write for My Girls with one’s nose in the air. They recognize sincerity when they see it. You’ve got the sincere touch, Miss Johnson; My Girls are sure to take to you.” She brought forth her Girls as if they were a compact little jury; she herself the judge; and Letty, or Joyella, or the authoress writing with nose in air, the prisoners on trial. ”

“ The demons were again at work within him. If only they would leave him in peace, just for a moment, mind and body.
“Stuart, don’t you ever get tired?” she cried pitifully.
He muttered: “Dead tired,” and closing his eyes, [82] allowed himself to relax entirely to her comforting touch, the soft coolness of her presence; as if establishing the memory of a second against which, in future turmoil and stress, he might lay his cheek, and find rest.
“Merle.” ”