Nadine. “Poor old lady. She ought to be dead.”
“You mean—the release?”
“Of course! What’s the use? You shoot a horse or a dog when it’s incurable, but God wants humans to go on suffering!” She shuddered, and for once in her life misinterpreted the expression of a man who was dwelling on the movement of her body. “Oh, don’t think I can’t face pain,” she added almost defiantly. “But I don’t care for it. That’s why I grasp life while it’s here!”
She had spoken impulsively, almost as though thinking aloud. Her hand brushed his. She rose and walked to a window, drawing the long curtain slightly aside to look out into the gloaming. But all she saw was her own reflection and the provocative gown gleaming back at her through the glass.
John watched her, waiting for her to come back. Why was she so long about it? Why was he waiting with such an intense desire for her to turn? A sudden panic seized him.
“Nonsense!” he thought, aghast.
That morning, blind with grief and saturated with its egotism, he had flung some things into a bag and had fled from London. An unexpected letter had toppled his small world over. It had come with the surprising unexpectedness of a poisoned arrow. It had contained poison, too—poison that had polluted the very springs of his faith. And in the first pangs of his agony he had headed for a station—any station—and had taken a ticket to a distant place—any place—so that he might escape the grotesque irony of immediate obligations. Any place would do, so long as it was an unfamiliar place, a place without associations. Somebody ahead of him in the ticket office had said, “Flensham.” So he had said, “Flensham.”
And this was where the somebody had unconsciously led him—to her own reflection standing out vividly and tormentingly in the darkness of a window!
“Nonsense—nonsense!” he repeated in his thoughts. “I’m just in a mess. This is reaction. It doesn’t mean anything. Reaction, and my foot. Lord, how it’s hurting!”
He concentrated on the pain, trying to trick himself. He rejoiced in its re-discovery, and saddled it with responsibility for his condition. Pain played the deuce with any one. It temporarily distorted values, and gave fictitious significance to unimportant things. That was why patients in hospitals so often fell in love with their nurses....
Nadine came back to him as abruptly as she had left him.
“What are you going to do?” she asked. “Stay here?” He stared at her. Her tone was almost harsh. “I mean—well, you’ve spoken so little about yourself, haven’t you? Aren’t you expected somewhere to-night?”
He shook his head.
“Where were you going when I met you at the station?”
“Didn’t you ask that? Anywhere.”
“That sounds morbid!”
“Don’t judge by the sound. I’m fond of roaming.”
“I see. And you roamed—here.”
“Yes.” He had a sense that they were going round and round in a circle, and he tried to smash his way out. “You know, I don’t think my foot’s half as bad as it seems.” Yet a moment ago he had been insisting on the pain of it. “I believe I could get away all right.”
“You think the foot could stand it?”
“I think so.”
“But the question still remains—where do you want to get away to?”
They were moving back into the circle again. He became exasperated.
“Yes, and that’s my question,” he retorted.
“Sorry,” she said.
He was appalled at himself. He had not intended to betray his exasperation. He was not exasperated any longer. He did not understand how he ever had been.
“No, I’m sorry,” he muttered. “Really, you must forgive me. You’ve been terribly kind. I don’t know what’s the matter with me.”
Nadine knew. It was her knowledge that had sent her to the window, and that had produced her rather lame effort to readjust the trouble. Something had happened very suddenly. She had sensed the exact moment. It was not the first time the moment had occurred in her experience.
Well—could it be helped? And did it matter? She thought of old Mrs. Morris upstairs. One day she might be like that! She thought of the hunt on the morrow, and of the hunted creature doomed to die, as every one at Bragley Court was doomed to die! But at this moment the hunted creature was not conscious of its fate, nor was any one at Bragley Court, saving Nadine Leveridge herself. She was always conscious of it, and of life’s demand for compensation.
“Don’t apologise, Mr. Foss, and don’t worry,” she said. “It will be all the same five hundred years hence. Meanwhile, since it’s obvious you can’t move, and would have nowhere particular to move to even if you could, remember that we are two very small dots in a very large universe, and finish your tea.”
Chapter V. The 5.56
The 3.28 had brought two visitors to Bragley Court. The 5.56 brought four. The man at the window of the Black Stag watched them alight.
The 5.56 shared with the 12.10 the distinction of being a fast express, and was, therefore, favoured by the majority of Lord Aveling’s guests. It was pleasant to arrive by the 12.10 in the morning, when the sun was at its highest and the sky was at its brightest; you reached your room at Bragley Court by half-past twelve, and your bag was unpacked and your brushes were out by the time the luncheon-gong sounded at half-past one. The 3.38 had its points, too, despite a tedious change, for there is always rather a jolly feeling when you arrive at a country house at tea-time. Tea is an occasion to look forward to after the dust and grit of travel; you flop into soft things and regain your belief in the harmony of life’s rhythm.
But the 5.56 was the train-de-luxe. You could pass a reasonable portion of the day in London before catching it. You spent the minimum of time in it, and although you missed the yellow cups of Bragley Court, a smiling attendant brought you blue ones. And when, at 5.56 to the minute, the gravel sounded in your ears and the train slackened speed, you found Flensham station at its peak—the station-master at his most dignified, the porter at his most obliging, and Old Jim (who never troubled to meet the 3.28, his horse, like himself, being a veteran and needing afternoon rest) at his most hopeful. Not that Old Jim ever expected to get a fare to Bragley Court. His horseflesh was not of the Bragley breed, and Lord Aveling supplied cars for all his guests who did not bring their own. Still there were other destinations, and sometimes a passenger on the 5.56 was bound for one of them.
Of the four guests deposited on the platform on this particular evening, the last to enter the waiting Rolls was a tall, slightish man mid-way between thirty and forty. His name was Lionel Bultin, and he stood, silent and aloof, and purposely lingering, to watch a little incident.
His three companions were, as he had established in the restaurant car, Zena Wilding, the actress, and a married couple who lived an unenviable existence under the name of Chater. Bultin, a ruthless reader of character, had needed only two minutes to decide that an additional “e” slipped between the second and third letters of their name would have described the Chaters more accurately. When the husband looked straight at you he seemed to be seeing you round a corner. The wife hardly ever looked straight
