The Essential W. Somerset Maugham Collection. W. Somerset Maugham

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      'But we mustn't be silly and sentimental, or Mr. MacKenzie will think us a pair of fools.' She looked at him gaily. 'We're both very grateful to you.'

      'I'm afraid I'm starting almost at once,' he said. 'George must be ready in a week.'

      'George can be ready in twenty-four hours if need be,' she answered.

      The boy walked towards the window and lit a cigarette. He wanted to steady his nerves.

      'I'm afraid I shall be able to see little of you during the next few days,' said Alec. 'I have a great deal to do, and I must run up to Lancashire for the week-end.'

      'I'm sorry.'

      'Won't you change your mind?'

      She shook her head.

      'No, I can't do that. I must have complete freedom.'

      'And when I come back?'

      She smiled delightfully.

      'When you come back, if you still care, ask me again.'

      'And the answer?'

      'The answer perhaps will be different.'

      VIII

      A week later Alec MacKenzie and George Allerton started from Charing Cross. They were to go by P. & O. from Marseilles to Aden, and there catch a German boat which would take them to Mombassa. Lady Kelsey was far too distressed to see her nephew off; and Lucy was glad, since it gave her the chance of driving to the station alone with George. She found Dick Lomas and Mrs. Crowley already there. When the train steamed away, Lucy was standing a little apart from the others. She was quite still. She did not even wave her hand, and there was little expression on her face. Mrs. Crowley was crying cheerfully, and she dried her eyes with a tiny handkerchief. Lucy turned to her and thanked her for coming.

      'Shall I drive you back in the carriage?' sobbed Mrs. Crowley.

      'I think I'll take a cab, if you don't mind,' Lucy answered quietly. 'Perhaps you'll take Dick.'

      She did not bid them good-bye, but walked slowly away.

      'How exasperating you people are!' cried Mrs. Crowley. 'I wanted to throw myself in her arms and have a good cry on the platform. You have no heart.'

      Dick walked along by her side, and they got into Mrs. Crowley's carriage. She soliloquised.

      'I thank God that I have emotions, and I don't mind if I do show them. I was the only person who cried. I knew I should cry, and I brought three handkerchiefs on purpose. Look at them.' She pulled them out of her bag and thrust them into Dick's hand. 'They're soaking.'

      'You say it with triumph,' he smiled.

      'I think you're all perfectly heartless. Those two boys were going away for heaven knows how long on a dangerous journey, and they may never come back, and you and Lucy said good-bye to them just as if they were going off for a day's golf. I was the only one who said I was sorry, and that we should miss them dreadfully. I hate this English coldness. When I go to America, it's ten to one nobody comes to see me off, and if anyone does he just nods and says "Good-bye, I hope you'll have a jolly time."'

      'Next time you go I will come and hurl myself on the ground, and gnash my teeth and shriek at the top of my voice.'

      'Oh, yes, do. And then I'll cry all the way to Liverpool, and I shall have a racking headache and feel quite miserable and happy.'

      Dick meditated for a moment.

      'You see, we have an instinctive horror of exhibiting our emotion. I don't know why it is, I suppose training or the inheritance of our sturdy fathers, but we're ashamed to let people see what we feel. But I don't know whether on that account our feelings are any the less keen. Don't you think there's a certain beauty in a grief that forbids itself all expression? You know, I admire Lucy tremendously, and as she came towards us on the platform I thought there was something very fine in her calmness.'

      'Fiddlesticks!' said Mrs. Crowley, sharply. 'I should have liked her much better if she had clung to her brother and sobbed and had to be torn away.'

      'Did you notice that she left us without even shaking hands? It was a very small omission, but it meant that she was quite absorbed in her grief.'

      They reached Mrs. Crowley's tiny house in Norfolk Street, and she asked Dick to come in.

      'Sit down and read the paper,' she said, 'while I go and powder my nose.'

      Dick made himself comfortable. He blessed the charming woman when a butler of imposing dimensions brought in all that was necessary to make a cocktail. Mrs. Crowley cultivated England like a museum specimen. She had furnished her drawing-room with Chippendale furniture of an exquisite pattern. No chintzes were so smartly calendered as hers, and on the walls were mezzotints of the ladies whom Sir Joshua had painted. The chimney-piece was adorned with Lowestoft china, and on the silver table was a collection of old English spoons. She had chosen her butler because he went so well with the house. His respectability was portentous, his gravity was never disturbed by the shadow of a smile; and Mrs. Crowley treated him as though he were a piece of decoration, with an impertinence that fascinated him. He looked upon her as an outlandish freak, but his heavy British heart was surrendered to her entirely, and he watched over her with a solicitude that amused and touched her.

      Dick thought that the little drawing-room was very comfortable, and when Mrs. Crowley returned, after an unconscionable time at the toilet-table, he was in the happiest mood. She gave a rapid glance at the glasses.

      'You're a perfect hero,' she said. 'You've waited till I came down to have your cocktail.'

      'Richard Lomas, madam, is the soul of courtesy,' he replied, with a flourish. 'Besides, base is the soul that drinks in the morning by himself. At night, in your slippers and without a collar, with a pipe in your mouth and a good book in your hand, a solitary glass of whisky and soda is eminently desirable; but the anteprandial cocktail needs the sparkle of conversation.'

      'You seem to be in excellent health,' said Mrs. Crowley.

      'I am. Why?'

      'I saw in yesterday's paper that your doctor had ordered you to go abroad for the rest of the winter.'

      'My doctor received the two guineas, and I wrote the prescription,' returned Dick. 'Do you remember that I explained to you the other day at length my intention of retiring into private life?'

      'I do. I strongly disapprove of it.'

      'Well, I was convinced that if I relinquished my duties without any excuse people would say I was mad and shut me up in a lunatic asylum. I invented a breakdown in my health, and everything is plain sailing. I've got a pair for the rest of the session, and at the general election the excellent Robert Boulger will step into my unworthy shoes.'

      'And СКАЧАТЬ