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

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СКАЧАТЬ I've already told you why I mean to give up my seat in Parliament.'

      'Have you realised that you are throwing over a career that may be very brilliant? You should get an under-secretaryship in the next government.'

      'That would only mean licking the boots of a few more men whom I despise.'

      'It's a very dangerous experiment that you're making.'

      Dick looked straight into Alec MacKenzie's eyes.

      'And is it you who counsel me not to make it on that account?' he said, smiling. 'Surely experiments are only amusing if they're dangerous.'

      'And to what is it precisely that you mean to devote your time?' asked Mrs. Crowley.

      'I should like to make idleness a fine art,' he laughed. 'People, now-a-days, turn up their noses at the dilettante. Well, I mean to be a dilettante. I want to devote myself to the graces of life. I'm forty, and for all I know I haven't so very many years before me: in the time that remains, I want to become acquainted with the world and all the graceful, charming things it contains.'

      Alec, fallen into deep thought, stared into the fire. Presently he took a long breath, rose from his chair, and drew himself to his full height.

      'I suppose it's a life like another, and there is no one to say which is better and which is worse. But, for my part, I would rather go on till I dropped. There are ten thousand things I want to do. If I had ten lives I couldn't get through a tithe of what, to my mind, so urgently needs doing.'

      'And what do you suppose will be the end of it?' asked Dick.

      'For me?'

      Dick nodded, but did not otherwise reply. Alec smiled faintly.

      'Well, I suppose the end of it will be death in some swamp, obscurely, worn out with disease and exposure; and my bearers will make off with my guns and my stores, and the jackals will do the rest.'

      'I think it's horrible,' said Mrs. Crowley, with a shudder.

      'I'm a fatalist. I've lived too long among people with whom it is the deepest rooted article of their faith, to be anything else. When my time comes, I cannot escape it.' He smiled whimsically. 'But I believe in quinine, too, and I think that the daily use of that admirable drug will make the thread harder to cut.'

      To Lucy it was an admirable study, the contrast between the man who threw his whole soul into a certain aim, which he pursued with a savage intensity, knowing that the end was a dreadful, lonely death; and the man who was making up his mind deliberately to gather what was beautiful in life, and to cultivate its graces as though it were a flower garden.

      'And the worst of it is that it will all be the same in a hundred years,' said Dick. 'We shall both be forgotten long before then, you with your strenuousness, and I with my folly.'

      'And what conclusion do you draw from that?' asked Mrs. Crowley.

      'Only that the psychological moment has arrived for a whisky and soda.'

      IV

      These was some rough shooting on the estate which Mrs. Crowley had rented, and next day Dick went out to see what he could find. Alec refused to accompany him.

      'I think shooting in England bores me a little,' he said. 'I have a prejudice against killing things unless I want to eat them, and these English birds are so tame that it seems to me rather like shooting chickens.'

      'I don't believe a word of it,' said Dick, as he set out. 'The fact is that you can't hit anything smaller than a hippopotamus, and you know that there is nothing here to suit you except Mrs. Crowley's cows.'

      After luncheon Alec MacKenzie asked Lucy if she would take a stroll with him. She was much pleased.

      'Where would you like to go?' she asked.

      'Let us walk by the sea.'

      She took him along a road called Joy Lane, which ran from the fishing town of Blackstable to a village called Waveney. The sea there had a peculiar vastness, and the salt smell of the breeze was pleasant to the senses. The flatness of the marsh seemed to increase the distances that surrounded them, and unconsciously Alec fell into a more rapid swing. It did not look as if he walked fast, but he covered the ground with the steady method of a man who has been used to long journeys, and it was good for Lucy that she was accustomed to much walking. At first they spoke of trivial things, but presently silence fell upon them. Lucy saw that he was immersed in thought, and she did not interrupt him. It amused her that, after asking her to walk with him, this odd man should take no pains to entertain her. Now and then he threw back his head with a strange, proud motion, and looked out to sea. The gulls, with their melancholy flight, were skimming upon the surface of the water. The desolation of that scene--it was the same which, a few days before, had rent poor Lucy's heart--appeared to enter his soul; but, strangely enough, it uplifted him, filling him with exulting thoughts. He quickened his pace, and Lucy, without a word, kept step with him. He seemed not to notice where they walked, and presently she led him away from the sea. They tramped along a winding road, between trim hedges and fertile fields; and the country had all the sweet air of Kent, with its easy grace and its comfortable beauty. They passed a caravan, with a shaggy horse browsing at the wayside, and a family of dinglers sitting around a fire of sticks. The sight curiously affected Lucy. The wandering life of those people, with no ties but to the ramshackle carriage which was their only home, their familiarity with the fields and with strange hidden places, filled her with a wild desire for freedom and for vast horizons. At last they came to the massive gates of Court Leys. An avenue of elms led to the house.

      'Here we are,' said Lucy, breaking the long silence.

      'Already?' He seemed to shake himself. 'I have to thank you for a pleasant stroll, and we've had a good talk, haven't we?'

      'Have we?' she laughed. She saw his look of surprise. 'For two hours you've not vouchsafed to make an observation.'

      'I'm so sorry,' he said, reddening under his tan. 'How rude you must have thought me! I've been alone so much that I've got out of the way of behaving properly.'

      'It doesn't matter at all,' she smiled. 'You must talk to me another time.'

      She was subtly flattered. She felt that, for him, it was a queer kind-of compliment that he had paid her. Their silent walk, she did not know why, seemed to have created a bond between them; and it appeared that he felt it, too, for afterwards he treated her with a certain intimacy. He seemed to look upon her no longer as an acquaintance, but as a friend.

      * * *

      A day or two later, Mrs. Crowley having suggested that they should drive into Tercanbury to see the cathedral, MacKenzie asked her if she would allow him to walk.

      He turned to Lucy.

      'I hardly dare to ask if you will come with me,' he said.

      'It would please me immensely.'

      'I will try to behave better than last time.'

      'You СКАЧАТЬ