PART I
THE LONG SPLICE
I
As the little vedette approached Dinard Cale--I had got quickly throughthe Customs and come across with the hampers of that morning's fish--anAlec Aird out of a Men's Summer Catalogue waved his hand to GeorgeCoverham out of a flea-bag and called out a cheery good morning. It washardly yet half-past seven, so Alec must have been up betimes. He seizedthe two bags I pushed ashore and gesticulated to the driver of anondescript sort of carosse. Then he looked me up and down and grinned.
"Ready for breakfast?"
"I'm ready for some hot water and clean clothes," I replied. "No, itwasn't so bad."
"And is this all the stuff you've brought? I asked you to come and staywith us, not just to drop in to lunch. Well, up you get. I don't supposeyou'll see Madge and Jennie till midday. That damned Casino; three a.m.again last night. But it's no good talking to Madge. It always ends inher doing just as she likes. Why, when I was Jennie's age I didn't knowthere was such a thing as a roulette-table.... I say, have you broughtany English tobacco?"
I had not been in Dinard, nor indeed in France at all, since before thewar; but the long steep street where the little dark cafes were openingseemed very friendly and familiar. We rumbled past the English Club intothe Rue Lavavasseur, and instinctively my head turned to the right. Eachshort descending street gave the same remembered glimpse, of whitecasino or hotel at the bottom and the bright emerald beyond. Weclattered down to the Place, and then slackened again to the ascent ofdark tree-planted avenues. "Gauche--droit, I mean--starboard a couple ofpoints," directed Alec, whose French bears no very great strain; andafter ten minutes or so the sound of our wheels suddenly ceased. Wewere on the soft sandy drive that ended at the gate of Ker Annic.
Alec Aird hates the Casino, partly because they won't let him smoke hispipe there, partly because he doesn't like his life strung up toconcert-pitch all the time. But Madge loves these vast vestibules ofshining mahogany and cut and bevelled glass, these palms that brush theelectric chandeliers, these broad terraces, all this bright restlessnessof hotels and shops and plage. So they had split the difference in thevilla they had rented. It stood high-perched among ilex andSpanish-chestnut, looking out over the rocks and islands that make ofthat bay a jaw full of cruel black splintered teeth. It had littlebroken lawns set with hydrangeas and beds and borders of blood-redbegonias and montbretia and geraniums and marguerites, the whole tiltedup as if it would have spilled over the rough cliff-top to the rocksbelow. The plage itself was hidden, but a little way out the translucentgreens began, dappled with a fairy-like refraction that brought thepurply shoals almost up to the surface. After that away northwardsspread the wide sea--serene yet curiously wistful, tender yet never gay,dreamily lovely but unflashing, unglittering--the pensive aspect of asea that has its back to the sun.
"Here we are," said Alec as we pulled up in front of a chromo-lithographfrom a toybox lid, the villa of dove-grey with shutters of a chalkygreeny-white and slender ironwork everywhere--grilles of ironwork overthe glazing of the double doors, scrolled balcony railings, and ironpassementerie along the ridge of the mansard-roof. "Now look here, ifyou want to go to bed say so, and we'll all be SleepingBeauties--confound those rotten late hours for that kid----"
I assured him that I had no wish to go to bed.
"Right. Then come along upstairs, and sing out if there's anything youwant. You'll find me somewhere about when you come down. And you mightgive me that tobacco----"
And, showing me up a staircase of waxed boards into my room, he left meto my toilet.
The pergola in which I found him three quarters of an hour later was atthe bottom of the garden. Its roof was latticed, so that over the floor,over the garden chairs and tables, over our shoulders and hands andwhite flannels, lay an intricate shepherd's-plaid of gay shadow thatcrept like a net over us whenever we moved. A _bonne_ followed me withcoffee and rolls, and we sat down to talk and to watch the flatuntwinkling sea.
We, or rather Alec, talked of Boche rolling-stock on French lines (did Itell you my friend was by way of being a consulting engineer?), ofcoasting boats building at St Malo, of France's prospects of recoveryfrom the devastation of the war. He thought they might pick up quickly,applauded the way they were putting their backs into it. And it may havebeen my fancy or the force of former associations, but already I wasconscious of a different atmosphere. There seemed to thrill in the veryair the push of a logical, practical, unsentimental people. I had feltit in the bustle of the porters and camionneurs on St Malo quay, in theunyielding Breton eyes of the fishwives in the vedette, in the tenfrancs that that scoundrel of a cocher had overcharged Alec. It began tobe impossible to look over that sunny emerald water and to say toyourself, "A man with two memories is bathing in that," to sit in thewarm cage of that pergola and to remember a man who clung to falsemiddles and had extraordinary things happen to him in the night. Beyondthe point a couple of fishing-boats and a brown-sailed bisquineappeared. Out toward St Cast crept an early pleasure steamer, its smoketrailing behind it like a smudge of brown worsted. From somewhere behindthat toybox of a villa came rapid exchanges in French--the day'sprovisions were arriving.
Suddenly Alec looked at his watch. "I say, what about having a look inat the Stade? I expect there are a few of them there by now."
"Anything you like; what's on?"
"These elimination-trials for Antwerp next month," Alec replied, who wasa Fettes man and an International in his day, and is still a familiarfigure at Twickenham and Blackheath. "Haven't you seen the posters?'Debout les Athletes'--'Sons of the Patrie'--they've been all over theplace for months. All out they are too, and some dashed good athletesamong 'em. There's one fellow I've heard of called Arnaud--haven't seenhim--in fact he's a bit of a mystery ... but look here, we've only justtime for the tram. Come along----"
The filthy little tram took us to the Stade in ten minutes. It was anopen field, with tracks and hurdles and a small white-painted GrandStand at one end of it, and already _les athletes_ had got down to work.There were perhaps a dozen of them, in zephyrs and shorts and sweaters,leaping, practising short bursts off the mark, doggedly covering theouter track or resting in twos and threes on the grass. Several of themwore little more clothing than a pair of shoes and a waist-sash. Theyflaunted their glossy sunburnt backs, stood with arms folded overuplifted chests, heads erect, eyes flashing, and never a smile. NoBriton would have dared to display such physical naivete. They mighthave been grimly training, not for a sporting contest, but for a duel tothe death.
We watched them for an hour, and then the whooping of that horriblelittle tram was heard in the distance. It hurtled up to the Halte,fouling the air with the smoke of the dust and slate and slack thatserved it for coal, and we sat with our backs to the engine and tookwhat care of our flannels we might.
The sluggards had descended by the time we reached the house again.Among the harlequin shadows of the pergola Madge advanced to me withboth hands outstretched.
"Monsieur! Sois le bienvenu!" Then, standing back to look at me, "Whatnice flannels, George! Some of the Frenchmen here, quite nice men, goabout in the most extraordinary cheesecloth arrangements, and as fortheir shoes----! Yes, I think I can be seen with you. You can take meshopping this afternoon. I saw it in a window yesterday but hadn't timeto go in. ('It's' a hat, if you must know, Alec.) And this is Jennie,in case she's grown so much you don't remember her."
There was a time when I used to kiss little Jennie Aird, but I shouldnot have dared to kiss the young woman who stood before me now.Take-aboutable, by Jove!... Jennie had her father's colouring,golden-red hair over a tea-rose-petal complexion lightly freckled; andif her eyebrows were faint, that somehow merely seemed to enhance thesteady clear pebble-grey of the gaze beneath. She was six inches tallerthan her mother, and whether it was the smallness of her short-featuredface that made full her beautiful throat, or whether it was the otherway round, I will not attempt to say. Nor do I remember whether her hairwas up or down
that day. I have an idea that at that time it wassometimes the one and sometimes the other. Her gesture as she offered meher hand had the proper condescension of such a creature for a batteredold piece of goods life myself. I wondered whether I ought to call herMiss Aird. These things come over one with rather a shock sometimes.
We lunched in a shining little salon, the exact centre of which, whetheryou measured sideways, lengthwise or up-and-down, was occupied by anenormous gilt Ganymede and Eagle lamp slung by heavy chains from theceiling--for the lighting was either oil or candles at Ker Annic. Thenback to the pergola for coffee. The tide had receded, and the rocks andthe stakes that marked the channels stuck up everywhere menacingly--theFort, Les Herbiers, Cezembre. The warm air was laden with the smell ofgenets, the sky was brightly blue over our white lattice. I saw Alecpreparing to doze.
"Well, what about Dinard?" I said to Madge.
"Sure you wouldn't rather follow Alec's example? Very well, we'll dropJennie at the tennis-place and you and I'll go off on the prowl. I'll beready in five minutes. Jennie!"
She ran up to the house, and I waited for her on the sandy drive.
We walked into Dinard. The magasin that enshrined "It" was near theCasino, and there, in an impermanent little white-screened andgilt-chaired shop that had hardly been open a fortnight and would closedown again the moment the season was over, I had a soothing half-hourwhile Alec's money took wing.
"Mais tiens, Madame"--the saleswoman's witty fingers touched, hovered,butterflied, while the hat became half a dozen different things underthe diablerie--"pose comme ca, en effet sur l'oreille--Claire, la voileverte--legerment--oh, m'sieu!" A delectable gesture of admiration ofeverything and everybody concerned, the hat, the veil, Madge, herself,as unabashed as the attitudinising of the sunbrowned young athletes. "Ondirait un sourire sur la tete de Madame!"
So, on a purely hypothetical rate of exchange, Madge bought three, andwe sought the teashop and Jennie.
All English-speaking Dinard meets at that teashop in the afternoon. Fromfour o'clock onwards it is a mob of youths in the blazers of Eton andCharterhouse and the Old Merchant Taylors, forking gateaux from theglass counters for themselves, their sisters, other fellows' sisters,their sisters' friends. Their days sped in tennis, bathing, tennis, ahurried dejeuner between the sets, tennis, watching tennis as theywaited for a partner or a court, a sudden flocking to the Le Bras fortea, tennis, dancing, chocolates, and the programme for the tennis forthe next day. They filled the ground-floor of the shop, made a continualcoming and going on the staircase that led to the room upstairs. Isteered Madge towards the table where Jennie was already seated, andfound myself with young Rugby on my right, his shirt open at the neck,flannels hitched up over his white-socked ankles. About me buzzed thewhirl of talk.
"He saw him at Ambleteuse, and he did it in ten in his walking-boots ongrass----"
"Rot! It's run in metres, not yards, and the record's ten andseventh-tenths----"
"American----"
"I bet you----"
"Well, it's nearly the same, and in his boots on grass----"
"Oh, put your head in a bag! Jennie, we've got Number Four Court forfive-thirty, remember----"
"But I tell you this chap Arnaud----"
"Do let me get you one of those strawberry things, Mrs Aird----"
"My brother saw him--he just threw off his coat and waistcoat and ran ashe was----"
"Mademoiselle, trois thes, s'il vous plait----"
I spoke in Madge's ear.
"She's a very beautiful child."
"Jennie?" said proud Madge. "Rather a young queen, isn't she? But Alec'sperfectly absurd about her. Thinks young people to-day are the same aswe were. She shall have the best time I can give her."
"Any----?" I looked the question.
"No. Quite asleep. She's perfectly happy dancing and dreaming andtalking sport with these boys."
"Who are they?"
She told me. She knew half Dinard, and the printed Visitors' List gaveher the rest.
"Well, well," was all I found to say, as I looked at Jennie again.
For while woman's beauty is coeval with Time itself, you have only yourown allotted portion of it. The loveliness that comes too early or toolate is no more your affair than the dawns before your time, the sunsetsafter you are gone. Madge at the midday of her life was still within myreach at my post-meridian, but Jennie would bloom like a rosy daybreakwhen my own evening star appeared. Young Rugby, young Charterhouse,would write his vers-libre to that small head, sweet throat and thered-gold of her hair.... But I hardly know why I write all this. I amonly trying to show how sorely I had needed a change and how grateful Iwas now that it had come. I knew that I was welcome to stay with theAirds as long as I pleased. It didn't matter if I didn't write anotherbook for ten years, it didn't greatly matter if I never wrote another. Ididn't want to write. That ethereal sea, that multi-coloured plage, thegenet-scented air, the feeling that all about me were people who knewwhat they could not do and wasted no time in attempting to do it--ah,they live their lives from the beginning and end them at the end in thatfair and unperplexed land of northern France.
II
Both by Alec and Madge, Jennie's education was discussed before me withcomplete freedom.
"Stuff and nonsense!" Madge would roundly declare.
"Look at those two Beverley girls!"
"Very nice girls, I should have thought," Alec would growl.
"Yes, and who's ever going to marry them? Nobody as far as I can see.That's Vi Beverley's fault. She's let them sit in one another's pockets,and have their own silly family jargon, and think that the rest of theworld's a cinema just to amuse them, till they don't know how to talk toa stranger without being rude. They positively freeze any young man whogoes near them, and when they do go away it's to cousins. Familyaffection's all very well in its place, but you can have too much of it.Jennie shall take people as they are. If she does miss an hour's sleeponce in a while she can stay in bed all next day if she wants."
"Better teach her baccarat and have done with it."
"Well, she needn't faint when it's mentioned. This is 1920. If everthose Beverley girls marry it will be one another."
"If she begins to think of marrying in another four or five years----"
"She's not going to sit on the arm of your chair for five years whileyou read the _Paris Daily Mail_.... Anyway, about to-night's party----"
Then, on the way to the Stade or the Club, I should have Alec's view ofthe matter.
"When we were kids, if we were allowed to stop up once a year for apantomime ... beastly mixed sort of place like this too! Madge doesn'tknow half that goes on. Why, before I'd been here three days one of thewaiters at the Grand had the infernal neck to come up to me andwhisper----"
I broke into uncontrollable laughter. The idea of a waiter whisperingalluring suggestions to Alec Aird of all people was altogether too muchfor me.
"And what did you say?" I asked him.
"Say?" said Alec grimly. "When I said 'Frog' he jumped, I promise youthat!... And mark you, these French fellows look after their own womenall right--got their hands on their elbows all the time. It's only ourconfounded ideas of freedom----"
"But there's no harm in to-night's party----"
"Oh, that's all right. That's at home. We can turn 'em out at teno'clock, and be in bed in reasonable time. It's that damned Casino Ibar----"
And so on. Early to bed and a nap after lunch certainly suited Alec. Ihave seen once-fine athletes settle down like this before.
I had been at Ker Annic some days, when about the last thing I expectedhad happened to me. I have just told you how little I cared whether Iever wrote another book or not. Well, that morning I had remained in myroom after coffee and rolls to write a couple of necessary letters.These finished, I had sat gazing out of the window at nothing inparticular, lazily content with the beauty of the morning. Then,suddenly and without the least premeditation, I had taken a fresh sheetof paper and had begun t
o make detached and random notes. These hadpresently strung themselves together, and by and by a phrase had sprungup of itself....
Whereupon, in the very moment of my despairing of ever writing again, Ihad realised that my next novel was stirring within me.
Now let me tell you the part that Jennie Aird played in this.
I frankly admit that the writers of my own generation have sometimesbeen a little smug and make-believe about young girlhood. We have seen alovely thing, and perhaps have let its mere loveliness run away with us,to the loss of what I believe is nowadays called "contact." We have notseen the butterfly's anatomy for the pretty bloom of its wing.Nevertheless, I cannot see that the eager young morphologists who aresucceeding us have so very much to teach us after all. To read some ofthese you would think that the whole moving mystery had been disposed ofwhen they had said that a young girl became conscious, shy, and had atalk with her mother. If it must be anatomy or bloom, I think I shall goon preferring the bloom. I have no wish to exchange the eyes in my headfor that improved apparatus that turns a woman's hand that is meant tobe stooped over into a shadowy bundle of metacarpal bones.
At the same time I do not take it for granted that youth is necessarilythe happiest season of our lives. I remember my own youth too well forthat. Emotionally, I am aware, it is all over the shop. It will gigglein church or make a heartbreak out of nothing, indifferently and withtragical facility. It is exploring the new-found marvels within itselfagainst the day when its eyes shall open to the miracle of another.That, at any rate, and as nearly as I can express it, was the state ofMadge Aird's sleeping beauty of a daughter on the evening of the partyof which Madge and Alec had spoken.
It was a ravishing evening of late light over an opal sea. The same duskthat turned the begonias velvety-black in their beds made luminous thepale hydrangeas, until they resembled the glimmering whites and mauvesof the frocks that moved in and out among them. The villa was lighted uplike a paper lantern, and the moving couples inside made ceaselesslywavering shadows across the lawn. Over the ragged bay the phares winkedin and out, and beyond the ilex and chestnut a faint luminositytrembled--the corona of Dinard lighting up for the night.
They danced in and out between the wide hall and the salon where thegilded Ganymede struggled with the Eagle--youngsters in their firstdinner-jackets, sylphs with their plaits swinging about theirsoftly-browned napes, their elders mingling among them or watching themfrom the walls. Madge, in a frock that seemed to be held up singly andsolely by her presence of mind, played fox-trots. Alec was busy"buttling" in the little recess where a scratch supper had been set out.The air was filled with the light talk in French and English, throbbedwith the rhythm of the foxtrotting piano.
For half an hour or so I made myself agreeable to a number of ladies ofwhose names I had not the faintest idea; then, with a sense of dutydone, I turned my back on the pretty scene and strolled into the garden.On the whole I was pleased with my day. That was what I had wanted--thesolace and security of being at work again. Nothing world-shaking ortremendous; I simply wanted to get on with the unpretentious job thatwas mine, and incidentally to be tolerably well-paid for it. That, whenall was said, was the way of wisdom, the kind of thing men very properlyget knighthoods for and had their portraits hung up in Clubs. It seemedto me that I had been through a very evil time, and that now that I wasrid of the weight of it life was worth living again. I paced the pathsof the gay artificial little garden, my thoughts on all manner ofpleasant times to come.
Near the end of the house grew an auracaria, forbidding and black. As Imoved towards it I noticed a dim white shape beneath it. I was turningaway again (for at a party like that no unaccompanied bachelor has anytitle to the dimmer corners) when the figure moved towards me. It wasJennie Aird--alone.
"Hallo, why aren't you dancing?" I asked. I had already watched herdance four dances in succession with the same partner--young Kingston Ibelieve it was.
She made a quick little grimace, but did not reply.
"This is rather a nice party," I remarked.
To this she did reply. "It's a beastly party, and I hate it."
I drew certain conclusions; but "Oh?" I said. "What's the matter withit? I thought it rather fun."
"Everything's beastly, and I wish we were back in London," she snapped.
"Anything the matter, Jennie?"
"Oh, how I do wish people wouldn't ask one what's the matter!"
"Then come for a turn and I won't."
She put her hand indifferently on my arm. She was nearly as tall as I,and I noticed as we passed the windows that, that night at any rate, herred-gold plait had been taken up and was closely swathed about her nape.
Of course young Kingsley or young somebody else had said something ordone something, or hadn't said or done anything, or if he had had doneit at the wrong moment or in the wrong way or had otherwise conjured upthe shade of tragedy. Therefore, as there are occasions when tact maytake the form of talking about one's self, I talked to Jennie aboutmyself as we skirted the garden.
"Do you know, something rather exciting happened to me this morning," Iremarked.
She showed no great interest, but asked me what it was.
"It mayn't sound much to you, but it interests me. I think I've starteda new book."
"I wish I'd something to do," was the extent of her congratulation.
"What would you like to do?"
"Oh, anything. I shouldn't care what it was. Anything's better thanthis."
"Than this jolly party?"
"Yes. Or else I wish I'd been born a man. They get all the chances."
I reflected that one man, somewhere in the world, would have a veryenviable chance, but kept my thought to myself. "Been having a row withsomebody?" I asked.
"No," she answered, I have no doubt entirely untruthfully. "I'm just fedup. I wish I could have nursed in the war or something, but I was tooyoung. Or I wish I could write like you. But if I told father I wantedto earn my own living he wouldn't hear of it, and mother's one idea isto dress me up and show me off and marry me to somebody. They don't knowhow sick I am of it."
I glanced at her as we passed the lighted windows again. That soft redsill of her lower lip was level, and just a shade short for the uppermember of her mouth's sweet portal, so that the pearls within werenegligently guarded. Temper and discontent were in her pebble-grey eyes.She gave her head an impatient toss, as if to shake off the thought ofthe boisterous young cadets and crammer's-pups within. In a day sheseemed to have outgrown them, to have lengthened her mind as shelengthened her frocks--if young women do lengthen their frocks nowadays.She wanted to nurse, to write, to be a student or some personage'ssecretary, to say to the dingy world, "Here I am--use me and don't spareme," in the very moment when I and such as I, disillusioned and worn,were sighing "Enough--release me--or if that may not be, give me butonce more, once more that first dawning joy!"
"I don't want to get married," she sulked. "Ever. Mother may laugh, butI won't. It would have been different in the war. I love all thosedarling boys who were killed. But these schoolboys are all the same....You don't want a secretary for your new book, do you?"
It may have been my imagination, but I am not sure that there did notstir in my memory some faint echo, of a woman sitting under a murky domeas she waited for her _Manuel de Repertoire Bibliographique Universel_.I know these secretaries and their wiles, and if my answer had hadtwenty syllables instead of one I should have meant them all.
"No," I said.
We had reached the wrought-iron gates at the beginning of the sandydrive. Three or four cars were parked there, and apparently somebody orother was leaving early, for a chauffeur had just switched on thehead-lights of a heavy touring-car that shook the ground with itsmuttering. Judging from the power of the lights it was the car of one ofMadge's French friends, for no English car carries shafts so blinding asthose twin beams that clove the darkness. They made the windows of thehouse seem a dull expiring turnip-lantern. Their blaze ligh
ted up everypebble, every blade of grass, defined the shadows of blade on blade. Outof the fumy darkness insects dropped, stunned with light, and movedfeebly on the path. I drew Jennie behind the glare, and as I did so oneof the English servant maids came up to me.
"A gentleman wishes to speak to you, sir," she said.
"To me? What gentleman? Where?"
"A French gentleman, sir. A M'seer Arnaud his name is."
"Arnaud? I don't know any Arnaud. Are you sure he asked for me and notfor Mr Aird?"
"It was Sir George Coverham he asked for, sir."
"Well, where is he?"
"Here--at least he was a moment ago----"
"Arnaud?" I mused. "Do you know a M'sieur Arnaud, Jennie?"
As I turned to her I saw her in that false illumination with curiousdistinctness. The soft upward glow from the path reminded one of aphotographer's manipulation of his tissue-paper screens. She stood theresemi-footlighted--smooth brows, low glint of her hair, the caught-upupper lip that showed the pearls, her steady gaze....
Ah, her gaze! What was this, that made me for a moment unable to removemy own eyes from her face? At what object beyond the car was she sofixedly looking? Why had her bosom risen? Why, as if at some "Open,Sesame!" did that betraying upper lip offer, not two, but all the pearlswithin?
My eyes followed hers....
As they did so sounds of talk and laughter and farewells drew near fromthe house. The departing guests were upon us.
But I had seen. If only for an instant before it retreated swiftly intothe shadows again, I had seen. Gazing at her as steadily as she hadgazed at him, the vision of a young man's face had momentarilyappeared.
Then the babble broke out about us.
"Thank you a thousand times, chere Madame----"
"Delicieuse----"
"Merci, M'sieu' Air-r-r-rd----"
"Better have the rug round you----"
"Where's Jennie? Ah, here she is----"
"A demain, a onze heures----"
"Good-bye----"
"Good-bye, Sair-r-r George----"
But I still saw that face haunting the transparent gloom. A beret caphad surmounted it, a blouse _en grosse toile_ had clothed the shouldersbelow. Monsieur Arnaud, if it was he, was dressed as an _ouvrier_ or asailor dresses.
And he was young, sunbrowned, grave, beautiful.
The car backed and turned. There was a grating as the clutch was slippedin, and then the engine dropped to a steady purr. The wrought-iron gatesstarted out in the glare, the red tail-lights diminished. I was dimlyaware that Madge said something to me, but I remained motionless where Istood. I came to myself to find myself alone.
Sunbrowned, grave, beautiful, young!
And he called himself Arnaud!
I have told you of that list of names with which his diary began. Arnaudwas not among them. But Arnold was. He had simply Gallicised it, and asArnaud he was seeking me.
Then I felt my sleeve timidly touched. His voice came from behind me, avoice with a charming, uncertain timbre.
"George--I say, George--who was that?"
III
I will make a shameful confession. My heart had sunk like lead. I hadwanted a holiday from him. That very morning I had thought I had securedit, had blithely planned my new and cheerful work.
And here he was, with his hand on my sleeve.
He repeated his words in a whisper. "George, who was that?"
Slowly I turned. "It _is_ you?"
"Yes."
"How did you know I was here?"
"I saw your name in the Visitors' List."
"Tell me what I can do for you."
He fell a little back. "George," he faltered, "why this tone?"
I refused to admit at once that I was ashamed. "We can't stop talkinghere," I said. "Where are you staying?"
"Out at St Briac."
"Then I suppose you're walking back? The last tram went long ago."
"It's only six miles."
"Then wait here, and I'll walk part of the way with you."
They were still merrily dancing in the house, but I managed to get to myown room unseen. I put on an ordinary jacket and cap and descendedagain. He was not where I had left him. He had skirted the lauristinusbushes, and from a safe distance was gazing into the house.
Oh, inopportune--inopportune and undesirable in the last degree!
"Ready?" I said.
Reluctantly he turned away his eyes and followed me past the cars. Wepassed out of the drive and into the dark tree-planted lanes of StEnogat.
A rutty little ruelle runs along the side of St Enogat Church and makesa short cut to the high road. We passed the church without exchanging aword. At last, where the street widened, I broke the silence.
"So you're Arnaud now?"
"Yes," he said in a low voice.
"The athlete people are talking about?"
He muttered that there were lots of Arnauds.
"You're a Frenchman anyway?"
"I've got to be something."
"Are you going to stay a Frenchman?"
"I don't know yet."
We continued our walk. The little white-painted Grand Stand of the Stadeglimmered over the hedge on our right when next he spoke. I saw hisglance at it.
"About those athletics, George," he said awkwardly. "I was an awful ass.If there's anybody who oughtn't to draw attention to himself it's me.But I did it without thinking. It was at Ambleteuse. They were runningand jumping, and I suppose my conceit got the better of me and I justhad to have a go. But I've cut all that out. It wasn't safe. I don't gonear a Stade now."
"Ambleteuse? Then you did cross Dover-Calais?"
He hesitated. "Not exactly Dover-Calais. Thereabouts."
"Thereabouts?... I suppose you worked your passage and then gave themthe slip?"
"No. I thought of that, but it was a bit too chancy."
"Then what did you do?"
"Well--strictly between ourselves, George--it's much better not talkedabout--you see my difficulty--but I swam it."
I stopped dead in my stride. "_You what!_"
He spoke apologetically, as if it were something not quite creditable.
"Yes. But I don't want to give you a wrong impression. I didn't swim itreally fairly. Not like Webb and Burgess. I only swam it more or less.For one thing, I hadn't trained, you see."
I recovered my breath. "What do you mean by swimming it more or less?"
His modesty was almost excessive. "It was like this, George. You see Irather funked just jumping in at Dover and trusting to luck to bring meacross. It's a devil of a long swim, you know, and besides, I had tohave my clothes; couldn't land here with nothing on. So I got hold of afellow at the Lord Warden, a boatman who'd been with Woolf when he justmissed it. I swore him to secrecy and all that, and fixed things up withhim, and he gave me tides and times and currents and so on. I told him Iwas only an amateur who didn't want to make a fuss till he'd had asighting-shot, and--well, it cost me a tenner. But it saved no end oftrouble. He and another chap came across with me in a littlemotor-launch. I greased myself and got into a mask, and a mile out ofDover I went overboard. Even then I didn't swim it fairly, for I washauled in again after about six hours for another greasing. My flesh wasquite dead half an inch in, you see. I was sick too. If we'd been reallymeant to do that sort of thing we should have been given scales, likefishes."
"Well, and then?"
"Well--that's all. I landed a little this side of Grisnez, just as ifI'd been out for an ordinary bathe. My chaps kept a sharp look-out forthe coastguard, and smuggled my clothes on to a rock; my English ones,of course; I bought this rig in Boulogne. And in three or four days Iwas pretty well all right again. But I don't think I'd have the staminato do it again.... I say, promise me you won't go talking about it,Geor