I. A. R. Wylie

“ After all, the decision rested with Christine. But it made things easier. A poor man would have had to wait. As to Christine, she was like a woman living in a dream. She heard me when I pleaded with her—for I did not give up without a struggle—but as she might have listened to the story of some one infinitely remote. She tried to grieve for both of us, but her own happiness was too great. I remember saying in my anguish for her:
"Have you ever thought what you will talk of together, day after day, year after year, you who haven't a word in common?" ”

“ One might have said that Fenwick had made her over again in his own image, moulding her mind and soul to his fancy. She who had never cared for sport and had been a timid rider hunted with him. She wore the valuable, rather commonplace jewelry with which he loaded her with a proud head. She moved about that vast, congested, too shiny house, with its retinue of expressionless servants, as though its ugly comfort and shallow magnificence were the very expression of herself. ”

“ Her essential loveliness lay deeper than her features. It was rare and subtle. If I had to describe it in my limited language I should have to enumerate a lot of strange and seemingly incongruous things—Italian hills in springtime sunset over the Champagna as you see it from the Sabine hills—a perfect sonnet—some old English song—the mellow graciousness of ancient things—the first daffodils of the year. These she loved. These were of her and in her. You saw them in her as a still deep water will reflect the shadows of trees and mountains.
But what could Roger Fenwick have seen? ”

“ What is it you love? What is it you know, Christine? Shall I never learn?"
He went into the house. Its meaningless magnificence made him feel an outcast. He went to his wife's little room and closed the door and drew the curtains across the moonlit window, like a thief opening a chest of treasures. One has to realise that he was a very strong and proud man utterly broken and humbled. ”

“ There she and I had begun the delicate, exquisite understanding of all lovely things, which had seemed to promise everything and had crumbled to nothing at the first touch. There she and I had talked and read and dreamed together. Now the place and the dreams had gone like a mist blown by a strong wind. Still we knew each other's minds too well for subterfuge. She saw the room behind her as I saw it, and suddenly she turned to me and met my unspoken question with a brave steadiness.
"You see, Keith, if one has to choose between two loves, one has to choose—that's all there is to it." ”

“ It is very Christinish to be late—a kind of provocative, unexpected flaw in her consideration and tenderness for others. And I saw the enchanting well-remembered smile appealing to us all, who waited for her, for toleration. I knew that presently she would be explaining to me how it had happened.
"It's my hair, Keith. You know, one day I shall just have to cut it off——"
And then, even if you'd missed a train, you would forgive her.
I wonder now what Roger Fenwick saw that night. It has often puzzled me. Because, after all, he must have met many physically lovelier women in his wanderings. ”

“ Kings Mead was Christine's home and was divided from Norbury Manor by the high road and a lovely neglected park which remained to her father, Sir Geoffrey, from a once important estate. Fenwick could see it from his smoking-room window, and I remember him taking me by the arm one day and pointing to it with a scornful pipe-stem.
"Queer how people will go on living like that, isn't it? They haven't even got central heating." ”

“ His approach was announced by the purchase of Norbury Manor, a red-brick gabled eruption of the Victorian era, which had deservedly stood empty for ten years. A party of contractors descended upon the place, disembowelled it, and turned it into a palace of ugly and sometimes funny luxury. There were devices for the saving of effort so intricate that they made you tired remembering them, and they were peculiarly inappropriate to a man so obviously capable of doing things for himself. ”

“ He knew that he was suffering. He was like a prince, clothed in silks and furs and rich ornaments, who had torn off all the splendid regalia and luxury which shielded him and walked naked in the bitter spring wind. ”

“ She made a little vague gesture. "Thank you, Keith. Not any more now. I'd like to see"—she smiled unaffectedly—"I mean, feel what he's brought for me. You know, he brings me something every day. It helps him to bear it, my poor darling."
So I gave her my arm, and we went down together to the front entrance of the house where Fenwick waited for us. And outside stood a new car, a monstrous, marvellous thing, each detail thought out to its most extravagant possibilities, its glitter demanding an endless labor.
"It's to be your very own, Christine." ”

“ When you've done I've got something to show you, Christine"-he flushed scarlet at that pitiful blunder—"I mean something to give you. Bring her with you, won't you?"
But after he had gone I did not read any more. A painful awkwardness divided us. We knew too much of each other's thoughts. I looked at her pale, composed young face, thankful almost that she could not see mine, and remembered my own question, "What will you two talk of, year after year?" ”

“ I said, "modern plumbing, new fangled telephones, and a car."
"Incidentally myself," he interrupted, laughing. "All good things in their way. At any rate it is for her to choose, isn't it? Or are you so old-fashioned that you think not?"
I let him banter me. I had lost. I knew that. But I had at least one last stand to make.
"You think me a poor creature," I said quietly. "I don't make money. I don't like the things you buy with it. But I love Christine. Perhaps that gives me more energy and courage than you expect in me. ”

“ At which she stood up, looking me straight and fearlessly in the eyes.
"I never loved any one before," she said.
That silenced me. I went away—right away—and when I came back she was Roger Fenwick's wife. It was a year later, and it stands to reason that I knew nothing save what was told me or what I could piece together for myself. They had been to America, Sir Geoffrey was dead, Kings Mead had been pulled down and the new stables were in course of erection, they were adding a ballroom on to the other horrors of the Manor. ”

“ He was one of the richest men in the world. There was nothing that human reason could desire that could not be his. He had power, he had health. He was young still. Everything.
He looked across to where Christine's home had stood and where an ornate and gaudy building now gleamed blankly in the moonlight. ”

“ I began to believe in miracles until one day I saw something that shook my faith.. It was the opening run of the season. Hounds were in full cry. Christine, Fenwick, and I were riding close to one another. Usually she hung behind, but to-day he turned and called to her laughingly, and she drove her horse alongside of his, valiantly keeping pace. ”

“ He had taken a step forward out of the group of men with whom he had been standing—an unconsciously arrogant movement as though he had shaken off a tiresome importunity, still more, perhaps, as though he wanted her to realise him at once, the one man who mattered in that crowd of good-natured, easy-going country gentlemen. ”

“ Mining, adventuring, gambling with huge stakes. Honestly or dishonestly he had accomplished in the full tide of youth enough to make an old man satisfied. And with that the physique of an athlete and a fair handsomeness saved from brutality—one didn't know quite by what—a steadiness of purpose, perhaps, which cuts out inevitably every sort of waste effort. ”

“ He'll have to sell sooner or later. I shall buy the place and throw a bridge over the road. It wouldn't take much to knock that old barn down and build up some decent stables. I've always hated having the stables near the house."
He went on explaining a new system of telephones which I only half heard.
But my ironic fancy pictured him touching some bell which would produce horse and groom through a trapdoor at the breakfast table. For the first time I felt a stirring of anger against him. Up to then I had liked him—as most people did whether they wanted to or not. ”