the darkness creeping over the Thames. From Christy’s windows he could see the curve of the river, and the lights of the great old city gleaming through the purple dusk, and the red fire from the engine of a train passing over Charing Cross bridge, and the head-lights of motors and taxi-cabs streaming along the Embankment—all the glamorous life of London in the hour between dusk and darkness of an evening in May. A scene in modern civilisation as he knew and loved it.
He turned round to Christy and said: “You old ghoul! You make me shiver. It’s not as bad as all that!”
Christy laughed, and switched on the electric light, breaking the spell of darkness.
“It’s my morbid temperament! P’raps I’m all wrong. But I’m just watching, and trying to find out the drift of things.”
He’d found one curious thing wherever he went, in whatever country; he found men and women talking anxiously, analysing civilisation, uncertain of its endurance. Was that a good or a bad sign? The intellectuals of Greece and Rome used to talk like that before the “decline and fall.”
“Let’s drop the international situation and get down to home politics. What are you doing with yourself, Major?”
“Looking for a job,” said Bertram.
Luke Christy advised him to get a soft job, in one of the Government offices, with good pay out of the rate-payers’ pockets and no more work than an office boy could do without knowing it.
“I want to be an honest man,” said Bertram.
Christy seemed to find that uncommonly amusing.
“My dear Major! The only honest men in the world are those who are dying of starvation. All who have more than that are rogues. I’m one of the worst of hypocrites, for while I bleed at the heart for suffering humanity, I get a good price for the articles in which I describe its torture and disease.”
Bertram suddenly flushed a little, and spoke in a nervous way.
“Christy, I believe I could write, if I tried. In the old days at St. Paul’s, I had a notion—anyhow, I feel I might do something if I had a shot at it. What do you think?”
“You?” said Christy.
That word and its emphasis of surprise were not encouraging, and Bertram found it hard to confess to his friend that he had been writing a book, and believed that at last he had found his object in life, and the impulse he’d been seeking.
“What kind of book?” asked Christy.
“A book on the War.”
Christy groaned, and cried “Kamerad!” with raised hands.
XI
Joyce had gone out to a dance, leaving Bertram alone to write his book. She had made him a fair offer to come with her, telling him that it was his own fault if she had to rely on other company as an escape from boredom.
“What company?” he asked, and looked up sharply from his papers.
She shrugged her shoulders.
“Some of the usual. The two Russian girls and Jack Hazeldeane, Kenneth.”
Bertram pushed his papers on one side.
“What’s the use of my coming? The two Russian girls bore me to death with their tales of the old régime and stories of Bolshevik atrocities. And I hate to see you dancing with Kenneth. He dances like an amorous ballet master. Besides—”
“Besides what—?”
“If there’s any dancing to be done, it’s I that want to dance with you.”
“All the time, Bertram?” She smiled at his greed.
“Yes. You’re my wife.”
His damnable jealousy had got the better of him again.
“Not your property, my dear!” said Joyce.
“Not other people’s property,” grumbled Bertram. “I’m old-fashioned enough to object to your doing that jazz stuff with any fellow who likes to put his arms round you. It’s disgusting.”
“It’s you that are disgusting!” said Joyce.
Her face flamed with sudden anger, and Bertram saw the steel glint in her eyes. She was standing by the doorway in her evening frock, a thing of blue silk, showing her white neck and bare arms. The light of the electric candles on his desk played with her gold-spun hair. Bertram loved the look of her, and yet knew that temper was creeping up into his brain because he could not stop her from dancing with a man he loathed, nor hold her to himself alone, nor get from her the absolute love he desired, hungrily.
“That’s not a good word from any wife to any husband,” he said, heatedly.
“Your word!”
She laughed and lingered at the door, looking at her husband with a queer, half-scornful, half-enticing smile which he did not see because he was staring at his papers. There was even a little pity in her eyes.
“Better come! That book of yours is getting on your nerves.”
“It interests me,” said Bertram.
“I know I shall hate it anyhow. I want to forget the silly old war.”
“Everybody wants to forget it,” said Bertram, with a touch of passion in his voice. “The Profiteers, the Old Men who ordered the massacre, the politicians who spoilt the Peace, the painted flappers. I’m damned if I’m going to let them!”
“Painted flappers?” said Joyce. “Meaning me?”
“Not meaning you,” he answered.
“Thanks for that!”
She left the room, and Bertram heard Edith say the taxi was waiting. He rose and made a step towards the door, as though to join her after all. He wanted to go, in spite of Kenneth and the Russian girls. He wanted Joyce’s beauty, though he would have to share it with her friends. But it was too late. The door had clicked behind her, and he heard the taxi-cab drive away.
He was too rough with Joyce. Why shouldn’t she dance with other men? Was it some strain of his father in him that made him hate it so—his father’s harshness and intolerance. Or was it the passion of his love which Joyce seemed to deny him—did deny him—after the death of her baby? She did not respond to his endearments, and made no disguise of her dislike of his caresses. Or was this constant wrangling between them—becoming rather serious at times—due to an intellectual challenge between their different points of view—her patrician philosophy of life, his democratic leanings? Anyhow, it was all very difficult. He would have to be more careful, get a better grip on himself, rise to more selfless heights of love, if need be, and if possible, make a sacrifice of his very passion for Joyce’s sake. It was all very difficult!
He constrained himself to get to his writing again, now that he had refused her offer of companionship. Soon he lost himself in his task, glad of the swift flow of his pen and his savage strokes. It was strong stuff. It was a bitter indictment of the stupidities, the blunders, the unnecessary slaughter of men, which he had cursed in time of war because his own men had been the victims, with the others. Those orders from Corps Headquarters! Inconceivable! Unbelievable in their imbecility!
He had written for several hours, utterly absorbed, when he heard the electric bell ringing in the hall. Joyce back already? Hardly. The clock said midnight, and she was not back then, as a rule, from one of her dances. Edith had gone to bed, as Joyce had taken a key. He would have to open the door. Confound it! Who on earth—
It was Susan, his sister, and she had a man with her, standing back a little behind her